Cloverfield 4is officially moving forward with J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot banner. It is believed that Matt Reeves will not have involvement in the project, though someone close to him will be writing it. Abrams has tapped Joe Barton to writeCloverfield 4, who was just announced as the new showrunner on Reeves’The Batmanspin-off series about the Gotham City Police Department. The upcoming series will stream exclusively on HBO Max and will serve as a prequel to the highly anticipated movie.

2016’s10 Cloverfield Lanewas a major departure from nearly everything having to do with the 2008 original that Matt Reeves directed. The surprise 2018 Super Bowl Sunday release ofThe Cloverfield Paradoxstrayed even further from the original ideas that fans loved about the original movie. Both of the sequels were originally developed as standalone movies,The CellarandThe God Particle, respectively. However,J.J. Abramsand Bad Robot decided to string them together within theCloverfielduniverse.

It is believed thatCloverfield 4will be more closely in line with the 2008 movie, and sources claim that we could see some returning characters too, though that has yet to be confirmed. According to sources, the movie willnot utilize found-footage. Hannah Minghella will produce the movie, along with J.J. Abrams for Bad Robot. Story details are being kept under wraps, but fans will more than likely hope that they are going back to the monster movie roots of the original movie. In an April 2018 conference at CinemaCon, Abrams stated that “we’re actually developing a true, dedicatedCloverfieldsequel,” which was going to be set up to open in theaters.

Matt Reeves and J.J. Abrams have spoken about aproper Cloverfield sequelfor years now. The first installment is a monster movie, which was directed by from a script by Drew Goddard. The movie stars Michael Stahl-David, Odette Yustman, T.J. Miller, Jessica Lucas, Lizzy Caplan, and Mike Vogel. It uses a found-footage motif to follow five young New York City residents fleeing from a massive monster and various other smaller creatures that attack the city while they are having a farewell party. While found-footage was all the rage in 2008, it isn’t as common anymore, and some fans will likely be happy to hear thatCloverfield 4will shy away from using it.

As for whenCloverfield 4will begin production, that is unclear at the moment. However, one can assure that it will have an inventive marketing campaign when the time comes, which means that a lot of people, including J.J. Abrams, are going to be keeping their lips sealed when it comes to any particular details about the movie.The Hollywood Reporterwas the first to announce thatCloverfield 4is moving forward with Joe Barton attached to write for J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot banner.