Here in 2026, moviegoers like to make the complaint that there aren’t enough original, non-IP movies. And then when something applicable comes around like David Robert Mitchell’s The End of Oak Street, which is admittedly right in producer J.J. Abrams’ mystery-box wheelhouse, the Internet immediately tries to prove it actually IS part of an already existing IP, in this case the 2008 found-footage creature feature Cloverfield. We’re a weird species. In any case, months of theorizing are set to culminate in the sci-fi film releasing in theaters, where answers can at last be found.
Or perhaps not found in this case, as Abrams himself went on the record ahead of the dino-filled movie’s debut to shed some murky light on the matter. Speaking with THR, the filmmaker seemed to pour cold water all over the Cloverfield connective tissue that has kept some fans on the hook since at least March. As Abrams put it:
