On February 4, Netflix, with no promotion, released a film titled The Cloverfield Paradox’. This completely surprising release it was advertised as something to watch after the game (The Superbowl).
The original Cloverfield movie was released in 2008 and was produced by J.J. Abrams. The movie is from the point of view of a video camera during an alien invasion across New York City. The Cloverfield story went onto have a second instalment with a completely different feel. 10 Cloverfield Lane was a Psych-Thriller about a woman who was trapped in a man’s underground bunker during the invasion. Each movie had success ultimately leading to the third instalment.
The marketing of the whole franchise has always been based on the element of surprise. Nobody knew the first two movies were about to be released and the marketing has always been just as exciting as the films themselves. CinemaBlend suggests that, “according to J.J. Abrams, the whole point of The Cloverfield Paradox’s shock, post-Super Bowl release was to continue capitalizing on that element of surprise.”
Various movies are using Netflix as a platform to release rather than opening in cinemas. It’s cheaper and easier and Netflix has an arguably larger audience than most cinemas. Paramount are said to have sold The Cloverfield Paradox to Netflix to avoid a box office failure like they did with Bright in 2017.
After watching The Cloverfield Paradox is was very clear that the film was not supposed to be a direct continuation of the Cloverfield franchise. There were various nods towards the previous films but no clear evidence that it was part of the same timeline. Saying that it was still a very good movie and shows that films released on streaming services like Netflix are just as good as the ones that hit the box office.
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