Like the creatures it occasionally offers up in blurry, half-glimpsed images, the Cloverfield “franchise” is an odd beast, focused on name recognition and tone rather than continuity or recurring characters. (The series’ second film, 10 Cloverfield Lane, wasn’t bolted into the franchise until well into its development process, for instance.) There’s been a third film in the series floating around for a while now—under the names God Particle or Cloverfield Station, variously—but home studio Paramount’s been very quiet about where or when it might pop up. (It’s been bumped around all over the schedule, from February 2017, to October 2017, to its new resting place on April 20.)
Now, it’s starting to look like Cloverfield Station won’t land at Paramount at all; according to The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix—always hungry for more blockbuster content—might be in negotiations to snap the film up for itself. The rumor going is that Paramount’s new chairman, Jim Gianopulos, is unhappy with the film, and that it might get culled or shopped out with quite a few of the studio’s other upcoming offerings. It can’t help that the big Cloverfield name—J.J. Abrams, who served as a producer (but never director) on all the series’ entries—is currently distracted with his brand new gig on Star Wars: Episode IX.
Cloverfield Station—which reportedly stars Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, and more as astronauts stranded in space—has already finished filming. At a reported $40 million budget, it’s the most expensive Cloverfield to date.