10 Cloverfield Lane

2016 film by Dan Trachtenberg

8 min read

10 Cloverfield Lane is a 2016 American science fiction horror thriller film directed by Dan Trachtenberg in his directorial debut, produced by J. J. Abrams and Lindsey Weber and written by Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken, and Damien Chazelle. The second film in the Cloverfield franchise, it stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, and John Gallagher Jr. The story 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 was developed from a script titled The Cellar; but under production by Bad Robot, it was turned into a spiritual successor to the 2008 film Cloverfield. It is presented in a third-person narrative, in contrast to its predecessor's found-footage style. Principal photography took place under the title Valencia in New Orleans, Louisiana, from October 20 to December 15, 2014.

10 Cloverfield Lane premiered in New York City on March 8, 2016, and was released in select countries on March 10. It was released in the United States on March 11, 2016, in both conventional and IMAX formats. The film received positive reviews and grossed over $110 million worldwide. A successor, The Cloverfield Paradox, was released on February 4, 2018.

Plot

After an argument with her fiancé, a young woman named Michelle leaves her New Orleans apartment. That night, while driving through rural Louisiana, she hears news reports of blackouts in several major cities. Suddenly, her car is struck off the road, knocking her unconscious. Awakening with an injured leg, Michelle finds she is chained in a bunker. Her captor, an older man named Howard, unchains her. He explains he took her to the bunker to save her life and claims that the air outside is poisoned after an attack.

Howard gives Michelle a tour of his bunker, introducing her to Emmett, his construction assistant. Through a viewport at the airlock, Howard shows her two decayed pigs outside, supposedly killed in the attack. Michelle also sees Howard's truck and recalls it striking her car. She privately talks to Emmett, who assures her the attack is real: he begged to be let in after witnessing the attack.

During dinner, Howard shows flashes of jealousy when Michelle grows closer to Emmett. Michelle steals Howard's keychain and flees. At the airlock, she prepares to open the outside door when she witnesses a woman covered with lesions screaming to be let in before dying. Michelle retreats to the bunker, and Howard explains that he accidentally struck her car while rushing to the bunker. Michelle is seemingly convinced.

Over the next few days, the trio begins to adapt to life underground, and Howard opens up about his daughter, showing Michelle a photo. After something loud passes overhead, the air ventilation system fails. Howard sends Michelle through a small duct to reactivate it. In the control room, she finds a padlocked skylight with the word "HELP" scratched on the inside, and an earring she saw in the photo. Michelle shares this with Emmett, who recognizes the girl as a local who disappeared two years earlier; Howard's actual daughter left with his wife. Deciding to escape, Michelle fashions a makeshift hazmat suit by stealing Howard's supplies and tools.

Howard discovers their plot and threatens to immerse them both in perchloric acid. When Emmett claims responsibility, Howard shoots and kills him. He tells a shocked Michelle that now they can be a family of two. While Howard cleans up, Michelle secretly finishes the suit. When discovered, Michelle flees, overturning a barrel of acid. The corrosive puddle disfigures Howard and starts a fire. Leaving Howard to his fate, Michelle dons the suit and escapes.

Outside, Michelle sees an approaching biomechanical alien craft, attracted by the bunker fire. It drops a Human Scale Parasite (HSP) that investigates the car alarm and tries unsuccessfully to get at Michelle. The craft discharges a green gas, which she protects herself from by wearing her mask, and takes shelter in Howard's truck. The craft's tentacles lift the truck to get to Michelle, but she destroys it with a Molotov cocktail. She drives away in the dead woman's car.

On the car radio, Michelle hears an emergency broadcast about successes in the battle with the invaders. It mentions that a safe zone has been set up in Baton Rouge, but when she arrives at a crossroads, she heads for Houston, where help is requested from people with medical or combat training. Two massive alien craft are revealed in the lightning of the distant stormy sky.

Cast

John Goodman as Howard
Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Michelle
John Gallagher Jr. as Emmett

In addition, Suzanne Cryer has a cameo appearance as the woman trying to enter the bunker, while Bradley Cooper has a voice cameo as Michelle's fiancé, Ben.

Production

Development

10 Cloverfield Lane originated from an "ultra low budget" spec script penned by Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken, titled The Cellar. The Tracking Board included the script in "The Hit List" of 2012 – an annually published list of spec scripts written within the year that have impressed its voting members. In 2012, Paramount Pictures bought the script and commenced further development under Bad Robot 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.

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. 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 an uncredited Daniel Casey. 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.

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

During production, the filmmakers noticed core similarities to Cloverfield, and decided to make the picture what Abrams calls "a blood relative" or "spiritual successor" of that film. "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", 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." 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. Abrams came up with the title after finishing Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015).

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. 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. Speaking of rewrites that took place during production, Winstead called them "nothing that was major".

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 (2014) and Pacific Rim (2013) led them to abandon them as they found the concept of kaiju films played out.

Filming

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