10 Cloverfield Lane

10 Cloverfield Lane
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Dan Trachtenberg
Produced by	J. J. Abrams Lindsey Weber
Screenplay by	Josh Campbell Matt Stuecken Damien Chazelle
Story by	Josh Campbell Matt Stuecken
Starring	John Goodman Mary Elizabeth Winstead John Gallagher, Jr.
Music by	Bear McCreary
Cinematography	Jeff Cutter
Edited by	Stefan Grube
Production company	Bad Robot Productions
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release dates	March 8, 2016 (2016-03-08) (New York City) March 11, 2016 (2016-03-11) (United States)
Running time	103 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$15 million[2][3]
Box office	$108.3 million[4]

10 Cloverfield Lane is a 2016 American psychological thriller film directed by Dan Trachtenberg and written by Josh Campbell, Matthew Stucken, and Damien Chazelle. Starring John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and John Gallagher, Jr., it is the second film in the Cloverfield franchise. The film was developed from a script titled The Cellar, but under production by Bad Robot, it was turned into a spiritual successor of the 2008 film Cloverfield. The film follows a young woman who, after a car crash, wakes up in an underground bunker with two men who insist that an event has left the surface of Earth uninhabitable.

The film is presented in a third-person narrative, in contrast to its predecessor's found footage style. It was released in the United States on March 11, 2016, in conventional and IMAX theaters.^[5] The film received positive reviews from critics, with many praising the performances of the cast, as well as the film's tense and suspenseful atmosphere.

Plot

Following an argument with her fiancé, Michelle packs up and leaves New Orleans, driving through rural Louisiana late at night. The radio tells of blackouts in major cities. Suddenly her red Volkswagen Jetta is hit by something and starts wildly doing donuts until it rolls off the road, and she awakes in a concrete room chained to a wall. A man named Howard unlocks the door and tells a terrified Michelle, “I’m going to keep you alive."

After she unsuccessfully ambushes him, he explains that he saved her life by finding her wreck and bringing her here, because there has been a massive attack by the Martians - possibly nuclear or chemical, and everyone is dead. He tells a doubtful Michelle that she can’t leave because the nuclear or chemical fallout will contaminate the air for one or two years.

Michelle meets Emmett, an ignorant employee of Howard, who witnessed an apocalyptic, red flash far away, and then forced his way into Howard's bunker. Through a window in the outer door, Howard shows Michelle two pigs that have died from exposure to the outside. Michelle also sees Howard's truck, and regains the memory of it forcing her off the road.

During the trio’s first dinner together that night, Michelle steals Howard's keys and is about to unlock the final door, when a car pulls up outside. Leslie, a woman suffering from severe skin lesions emerges from the car and begs to be let inside. When she violently bangs her head against the tiny reinforced window to try to break in, Michelle realizes Howard was right, and doesn’t open the door. Unprovoked, Howard confesses to her that in his panic during the attack, he accidentally hit her car. As time passes, the trio begins getting along and adapting to life underground. But Howard has little tolerance for Emmet, and can only perceive Michelle as a little girl. When they hear loud noises above, Howard assumes it is airborne patrols sweeping the last signs of life.

When the ventilator fails, Michelle is the only one small enough to crawl through the air duct to the ventilation room, where she finds a padlocked hatch to outside, with the word "HELP" scratched on the inside of the glass. Howard tells Michelle about his beloved daughter, who is "not with us anymore". Michelle and Emmett eventually detect inconsistencies in his story, including discovering that the picture of his daughter Howard showed Michelle is actually a girl who went missing two years before. They suspect Howard abducted and murdered her, and they secretly begin fashioning a makeshift, biohazard suit for an escape outside.

Discovering they used his tools, Howard threatens to dissolve them both in a drum of perchloric acid unless they reveal why they used the tools. Emmett accepts the blame, claiming he had planned to steal Howard's gun; Howard immediately shoots him in the head. While Michelle is grieving, Howard returns shaven and groomed, insisting it was only right to kill him, especially since it was meant that it only be the two of them together.

Michelle is completing the biohazard suit when Howard finds it. She flees, coming across Emmett's dissolving body as Howard corners her. She kicks over the acid toward Howard and he falls in the puddle, which also starts an electrical fire. Ignoring the protests of the injured and knife wielding Howard, that "You don't know what's out there! You can't run from them!", Michelle escapes into the air duct, dons the suit, and escapes. Outside she see birds flying, and removes the biomask.

However, she spies a tentacled biomechanical craft floating in the distance. The bunker explodes from the fire, attracting the craft's attention, and Michelle is stalked by an alien creature. As craft then looms overhead it releases a green gas, forcing her to take shelter in Howard's truck, before the craft’s tentacles pick it up in an attempt to consume her. Finding the components for a Molotov cocktail, she throws it into the maw of the craft and it explodes.

Michelle drives off, knocking over a mailbox that reads "10 Cloverfield". On the radio she hears about successful human resistance efforts. Survivors are directed to evacuate to the north, while those able to aid the fight are directed to Houston. Being at a crossroad, Michelle resolutely heads for Houston, where lights are moving above the city, and larger crafts loom nearby.

Cast

• Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Michelle^[6]
• John Goodman as Howard Stambler^[7]
• John Gallagher, Jr. as Emmett DeWitt
• Bradley Cooper as Ben (voice)^[8]
• Suzanne Cryer as Leslie^[9]

Production

Development

John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Gallagher, Jr.

10 Cloverfield Lane originated from an "ultra low budget" spec script penned by Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken, titled The Cellar.^[10][11] The Tracking Board included the script in "The Hit List" of 2012^[11] – an annually published list of spec scripts written within the year that have impressed its voting members.^[12] In 2012, Paramount Pictures bought the script and commenced further development under Bad Robot Productions for Insurge Pictures, Paramount's specialty label for films with a micro-budget. When Bad Robot became involved, the film was assigned the codename Valencia to keep exact details of the production a secret.^[13]

Damien Chazelle was brought in to rewrite Campbell and Stuecken's draft and direct the film. Chazelle dropped out from directing when his Whiplash project received funding.^[6] On April 3, 2014, it was reported production for Valencia was greenlit to begin in the fall of 2014, under the direction of Dan Trachtenberg with the latest draft being written by Dan Casey.^[14] A budget of about $5 million was reported to be expected, in keeping with the mandate of Paramount's Insurge division of producing micro-budgeted films.^[15]

On July 8, 2014, Variety reported John Goodman was in negotiations to star in the film.^[16] On August 25, 2014, they reported Mary Elizabeth Winstead had entered negotiations,^[17] and on September 22, 2014, John Gallagher, Jr. reportedly joined the cast.^[18]

During production, the filmmakers noticed core similarities to Cloverfield,^[19] and decided to make the picture what Abrams calls "a blood relative" or "spiritual successor" of that film.^[20][21] "The spirit of it, the genre of it, the heart of it, the fear factor, the comedy factor, the weirdness factor, there were so many elements that felt like the DNA of this story were of the same place that Cloverfield was born out of," said Abrams. In other interviews he explained: "Those characters and that monster [from Cloverfield] are not in this movie, but there are other characters and other monsters,"^[21] and "This movie is very purposefully not called Cloverfield 2, because it's not Cloverfield 2, [...] So if you're approaching it as a literal sequel, you'll be surprised to see what this movie is. But while it's not what you might expect from a movie that has the name Cloverfield in it, I think you'll find that you'll understand the connection when you see the whole thing."^[22][23][24] Winstead and Gallagher mentioned that during production they were aware that the film had thematic similarities to Cloverfield, but did not learn that there would be an official connection until they were informed of the chosen title, only a few days before the release of the trailer.^[25] Abrams came up with the title after finishing Star Wars: The Force Awakens.^[26][27]

In a March 2015 interview, a few months after production wrapped, Winstead was asked about her experience during Valencia and described it as a "really contained film", reiterating the premise of The Cellar about a woman being trapped with her mysterious savior in a supposed post-nuclear fallout world.^[28] Later in the month, Insurge Pictures was reported to have been dismantled and its staff absorbed by its parent company. Insurge's only film that had yet to be released was reported to be Valencia.^[29] Speaking of rewrites that took place during production, Winstead called them "nothing that was major".^[30]

During an interview with Abrams to promote 10 Cloverfield Lane, he said the creative team behind the original had some ideas on developing Cloverfield 2, but the release of films such as Godzilla and Pacific Rim led them to abandon them as they found the concept of kaiju films played out.^[22]

Filming

Principal photography on the film began on October 20, 2014 in New Orleans, Louisiana.^[31] Filming took place in chronological order on only one set.^[32] Scenes involving explosions, fire, and smoke were shot in early December 2014 in Hahnville, Louisiana.^[33] Filming ended on December 15, 2014.^[34]

Music

Bear McCreary composed the music for the film.^[32] The soundtrack was digitally released on March 11, 2016.^[35]

Marketing

The film's title was revealed on January 15, 2016 in a trailer attached to 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.^[20] As with Cloverfield, a viral marketing campaign was used that included elements of an alternate reality game. Bad Robot kick-started the campaign in early February 2016 by updating the Tagruato.jp website^[7] used in the original. The campaign revealed backstory information about the character Howard Stambler and his daughter.^[36]

Release

The film was released in select countries on March 10, 2016, in regular and IMAX theaters, before its official release in North America on March 11, also in conventional and IMAX theaters.^[37] Those who attended screenings of the film at AMC IMAX theaters were eligible to receive collectible movie posters, which illustrated the three main characters separately.^[38] The film was rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for "thematic material including frightening sequences of threat with some violence, and brief language".^[39]

Reception

Box office

10 Cloverfield Lane grossed $72 million in the United States and $36.2 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $108.3 million.^[4]

In the United States and Canada, the film made $1.8 million from its Thursday night previews at 2,500 theaters,^[40][41][42] and $8 million on its first day (including Thursday previews).^[43] In its opening weekend, it earned $24.7 million, finishing in second place at the box office behind Zootopia ($51.3 million), which was in its second weekend.^[44]

Outside North America, 10 Cloverfield Lane received a staggered release,^[45] across 54 countries.^[46] It earned $1.5 million in its opening weekend from six international markets with a bulk of it coming from Australia ($1 million).^[45] Overall, the top openings were in the United Kingdom and Ireland ($2.2 million), South Korea ($1.7 million), and France ($1.4 million).^[47][48]

Critical response

10 Cloverfield Lane received positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 90%, based on 257 reviews, with a weighted average score of 7.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Smart, solidly crafted, and palpably tense, 10 Cloverfield Lane makes the most of its confined setting and outstanding cast—and suggests a new frontier for franchise filmmaking."^[49] Metacritic gives the film a normalized score of 76 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[50] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale.^[51]

Bill Zwecker of the Chicago Sun-Times gave 10 Cloverfield Lane four stars out of four, commending the film as "continually gripping and extremely engrossing ... [Dan Trachtenberg] helmed this film with artistry, imagination and skillful precision."^[52] Jeannette Catsoulis of the New York Times praised the cast's performance and Jeff Cutter's cinematography, while writing: "Sneakily tweaking our fears of terrorism, '10 Cloverfield Lane,' though no more than a kissing cousin to its namesake, is smartly chilling and finally spectacular. A sequel is virtually a given."^[53] Alan Scherstuhl of Village Voice also praised the acting and technical aspects, but wrote that the film "is less compelling in terms of character and meaning."^[54]

In a mixed review for Slant, Chuck Bowen found a lack of character development between the three leads, and labeled the film's ending as anticlimactic. Bowen also writes: "The film hits its expositional narrative marks and nothing else ... 10 Cloverfield Lane will almost immediately evaporate from the mind, before J.J. Abrams commences in selling you the same thing all over again."^[55] Soren Andersen of the Seattle Times, who gave 10 Cloverfield Lane one and half stars out of four, similarly criticized the film's ending, labeling it as "full-bore" and "Too little. Too late."^[56] James Verniere of the Boston Herald disapproved of the characters and pacing, and he ultimately described the film as "a crummy, low-rent, intellectually bereft thriller."^[57]

Accolades

Future

Having originally planned the film as a direct sequel to Cloverfield, Abrams suggested that he has thought of something that if they are lucky enough to get it made "could be really cool that [it] connects some stories" in a third film, even teasing a larger Cloverfield universe.^[22][62] Interviews with Trachtenberg and Winstead confirm that the movie is, and always was intended to be, an expansion of the first film, with Trachtenberg calling it the "Cloververse".^[63] Winstead has voiced her interest in returning for another installment.^[64]

In October 2016, it was revealed that the Abrams-produced God Particle will be the third installment.^[65]

See also

• List of films featuring extraterrestrials

References

External links

• Official website
• 10 Cloverfield Lane at the Internet Movie Database
• 10 Cloverfield Lane at Box Office Mojo
• 10 Cloverfield Lane at Rotten Tomatoes
• 10 Cloverfield Lane at Metacritic
• 10 Cloverfield Lane (review) at AllMovie by Daniel Gelb (rating 4/5)