The Cloverfield franchise was always a strange one. The first film essentially began as a proof of concept, a vehicle through which J.J. Abrams could test out a new monster and a new marketing technique for the viral age. There’s a reason the 2008 Cloverfield, directed by Matt Reeves, is remembered more for its viral marketing campaign — which used alternate reality games and Myspace to build hype — than for the film itself, though its found-footage approach did make a mark. But it was the surprise critical success of the second film, Dan Trachtenberg’s 10 Cloverfield Lane, that turned Cloverfield into a proper blockbuster franchise… until the next movie.
