{"id":363539,"date":"2026-03-29T01:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T01:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/363539\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T01:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T01:26:10","slug":"could-the-most-mysterious-sci-fi-thriller-of-the-year-actually-be-a-secret-cloverfield-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/363539\/","title":{"rendered":"Could The Most Mysterious Sci-Fi Thriller Of The Year Actually Be A Secret ‘Cloverfield’ Movie?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not uncommon for movies \u2014 especially genre movies \u2014 to be reworked to fit in an existing franchise. Saw 2<\/a> was originally a script entitled The Desperate. Multiple Die Hard<\/a> movies were just retooled spec scripts, and others were based on (unrelated) novels. Even the Dirty Dancing sequel, Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights, began as a political drama script that had dancing shoehorned in later. <\/p>\n

But no franchise is better proof of this than Cloverfield. The franchise of sci-fi invasion movies began with 2008\u2019s Cloverfield<\/a>, but each of its two sequels, 10 Cloverfield Lane<\/a> and The Cloverfield Paradox<\/a>, were retooled from original scripts to fit into the \u201cCloververse.\u201d Now, another movie is sparking speculation that it, too, could be part of this universe, despite the fact that it\u2019s not being marketed as such: The End of Oak Street, the new movie from It Follows and Under the Silver Lake director David Robert Mitchell. Check out the haunting trailer for the movie below: <\/p>\n

There\u2019s not much that can be gleaned from the trailer, but it shows an idyllic suburban street where a mom (Anne Hathaway) and a dad (Ewan McGregor) live with their two kids, only to be interrupted when the entire street seems to be transported back to prehistoric times, leaving dinosaurs roaming the streets. <\/p>\n

It seems like the perfect original sci-fi movie, tinged with the surrealism that Mitchell showed in Under the Silver Lake. So where\u2019s the evidence that it\u2019s secretly a Cloverfield movie? The clearest evidence is in the title itself. While it\u2019s now being marketed as The End of Oak Street, originally it had a different title: Flowervale Street. Why the change? Perhaps \u201cFlowervale\u201d was tipping its hand a bit too much. Clover is a kind of flower, and \u201cvale\u201d means valley, which seems suspiciously close to \u201cfield.\u201d <\/p>\n

Then, there are the credits involved. J.J. Abrams, the creator of the Cloverfield franchise, is listed as a producer on this movie, and it\u2019s his credit that\u2019s shown first in the teaser trailer. Why would J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot Productions sign on to an artsy, high-concept sci-fi thriller unless there was another angle? <\/p>\n

In case that wasn\u2019t enough, there\u2019s even a canon tease that a story like this exists in the Cloververse. The Cloverfield Paradox focused on how a scientific experiment caused strange anomalies all over space and time \u2014 the perfect circumstance for a town to be transported to prehistoric times. <\/p>\n

Hiding a big franchise link from the marketing seems like a big missed opportunity, but the shock upon release might be worth it. In fact, something similar has happened before, or at least, almost happened. In 2020, 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg revealed on social media<\/a> that his hit movie Prey was originally planned to be marketed as a standalone film, and its existence as a Predator prequel was meant to be discovered in the theater. <\/p>\n

Perhaps that gimmick, which was foiled by Prey\u2019s Hulu release, could be adopted by the Cloverfield franchise. If this theory is right, then it may just have ruined the surprise. But there\u2019s no way to tell until release. <\/p>\n

The End of Oak Street premieres in theaters on August 14. Learn Something New Every Day<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not uncommon for movies \u2014 especially genre movies \u2014 to be reworked to fit in an existing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[146,3838,7349,26992,85,46,397,7166,6625,29582],"class_list":{"0":"post-363539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-entertainment-news","10":"tag-homepage","11":"tag-hp-latest","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-science-fiction","16":"tag-spoilers","17":"tag-trailers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}