CLOVERFIELD PARADOX Sold To Netflix, Now Available to Stream

Talk about the latest movies and video releases here!
Message
Author
User avatar
AndyDursin
Posts: 34184
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
Location: RI

Re: CLOVERFIELD PARADOX Sold To Netflix, Now Available to Stream

#16 Post by AndyDursin »

I think there's upside here, because while you say CLOVERFIELD and 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE weren't "smashes" -- remember they cost next to nothing to produce, and they both returned a really good profit. Paramount generated excellent returns -- importantly on low risk -- for both of those. That's nothing to sneeze at, so there is something to be said for the CLOVERFIELD "brand". And what the brand is, is really Abrams' TWILIGHT ZONE...not so much a "connected universe" thing. (I noticed some dialogue here about the "space/time continuum being churned up, opening up the door for monsters, etc etc" which seemed to give a blanket explanation for everything happening in these films).

Now, this movie was in trouble early on (and cost much more) and Paramount knew it. This is from Variety's article last week:
Paramount has produced and released two Cloverfield films to great profitability. The pics took unique perspectives on what were traditionally big-budget movies. Cloverfield, released in 2008 and directed by Matt Reeves, was a found-footage monster movie made for $25 million that grossed $80 domestically. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) was a contained alien invasion movie that cost even less and made $72 million domestically.

However, God Particle, which was also known as Cloverfield Station, seemed to eschew the model from the get-go. Its budget was in the $40 million-plus range, and its cast was more established, boasting David Oyelowo, Ziyi Zhang, Daniel Bruhl, Elizabeth Debicki and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

Sources say the movie needed some work, and while Abrams expressed an intent to get down to business in postproduction, it was too little, too late. Several sources suggested that Abrams’ attention may be taken up by his unexpected new assignment, the final installment of the Star Wars Skywalker episodes, which he signed on to in September after the firing of director Colin Trevorrow.
So I think when Abrams WASN'T coming in to save it, Paramount did the smart thing, cut their losses and sold it to Netflix. The movie may have been salvageable with a lot of reshoots, but it was going to cost too much and the movie had been delayed so long, I think they were wise to avoid a theatrical release

Going forward, even though this was merely "okay," I'm up for future installments in this series -- and I'm guessing if the scripts are written with some kind of CLOVERFIELD "connection" in mind, they're not going to have as many issues like this did. At a time when the studios only seem intent on churning out $200 million sequels, this lower-budgeted but uniquely marketed series is at least something refreshing. Who announces a sequel within weeks of its release? Who drops a movie on Netflix hours after they announce it's available? Unless you were a hardcore movie nerd and read news sites like I do, most people had NO CLUE this thing was even being made...much less ready to be watched! I think that's kind of fun, at least it's different.

Again, I'm not sure the plan was to ever have a long running series of CLOVERFIELD "branded" movies -- I think Abrams' idea was to produce some low-budget sci-fi/horror movies through his Bad Robot label, and after the fact came this notion of using CLOVERFIELD as a connecting tissue binding these projects together (once the original movie came out and was a hit).

But, the name does mean something and even if it's a loyal if not massive fanbase, they've got that going for it. Keep in mind Netflix paid a lot of money for this too -- as in, Paramount is making money off the deal, and the film reportedly cost $40-$45 million, so whatever that math is, they're doing much better than breaking even.

This next WWII project sounds very different than all of these, and it'll be interesting to see if it goes to theaters or Netflix buys it also.

Post Reply