J.J. Abrams is insisting that Bad Robot’s upcoming WWII fantasy/horror film Overlord is not secretly the fourth Cloverfield movie. The Cloverfield franchise has traveled a strange path since the original film – a found-footage monster movie for the post-9/11 era – was released in 2008. A followup was unexpectedly released eight years later, but that film (10 Cloverfield Lane) had no apparent connection to the first Cloverfield, its title aside. Then came this year’s The Cloverfield Paradox, which provided an explanation (however confusing) for how these movies are linked and set the stage for Cloverfield 4 in the process.

At least, Cloverfield Paradox appeared to set up Cloverfield 4. It’s been suspected for awhile that Paramount and Bad Robot’s mysterious supernatural/historical war film Overlord is (not so) secretly the fourth Cloverfield movie. Shortly before Cloverfield Paradox‘s Super Bowl LII night premiere on Netflix, it was even reported that Overlord and Clovefield 4 are in fact one and the same. Well, if that is the case, then Abrams isn’t ready to give up the charade just yet.

During Paramount’s film presentation at the ongoing CinemaCon 2018 in Las Vegas, Abrams claimed that Overlord is its own unique beast and not part of the Cloverfield franchise. He went on to reveal that a proper Cloverfield sequel is being developed now and presented some actual footage from Overlord for the crowd in attendance. Read on for a description of the Overlord clips that were shown during the event:


Eric Vespe

@ericVespe
9h
JJ Abrams said Overlord is Bad Robot's first R-Rated movie and swears it's not a secret Cloverfield movie. In fact they are working a dedicated Cloverfield sequel right now.


Eric Vespe

@ericVespe
Overlord looked way up my alley, by the way. Set against the backdrop of D-Day, a squad of soldiers stumble upon a Nazi bunker with some real crazy shit, including a French woman's decapitated head asking for help. Yes, please, thank you.

8:46 PM - Apr 25, 2018
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Directed by Julius Avery (Son of a Gun) and written by Billy Ray (Captain Phillips) and Mark L. Smith (The Revenant), Overlord – as the above tweets indicate – takes place on the eve of D-Day, as a group of allied soldiers stumble upon what appear to be bizarre science experiments run by the Nazis. The popular theory is that the film’s “supernatural” elements are the result of our reality being exposed to parallel universes, following the particle accelerator experiment conducted in The Cloverfield Paradox. That movie implied that all of history would be susceptible to these parallel realities, which explains how they could impact events during WWII.

At this point, however, most everyone should know better than to take Abrams at his word. The filmmaker infamously misled people about Khan being the true villain in Star Trek Into Darkness and could easily be lying about Overlord too. It’s also possible that Abrams is trying to distance the film from the Cloverfield franchise a bit, following the poor critical reception for Cloverfield Paradox. Then again, Paramount did just release another original horror/thriller in the form of A Quiet Place, which some suspected was a Cloverfield movie prior to its release (and not without reason, as A Quiet Place‘s writers did consider the idea). Could Abrams be telling the truth about Overlord after all?