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Simple Chart Makes Sense of the Insane ‘Cloverfield Paradox’ Timeline Explanation

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How do the movies all fit together? The new film kinda/sorta explains that.

The surprise Super Bowl commercial for Netflix’s The Cloverfield Paradox promised something pretty exciting for longtime Cloverfield fans: 10 years after the original found footage monster movie, which brought a giant alien monster into New York City, we were told that we were going to find out *why* the monster arrived here on Earth.

And indeed we do find that out in The Cloverfield Paradox, which takes us into the future to explain that a team of scientists up in outer space accidentally caused a rift in the space-time continuum while trying to solve Future Earth’s energy crisis, opening up a portal to another dimension that spills monsters into different places and times.

Smashing together multiple dimensions, shattering reality, and not just on that station… everywhere. This experiment could unleash chaos the likes of which we have never seen. Monsters, demons, beasts from the sea… and not just here and now,” a conspiracy theorist (correctly) warns before precisely *that* happens. “In the past, in the future, in other dimensions.”

This dialogue is the key to understanding the increasingly-hard-to-follow “Cloverfield Universe,” as it explains how the events of all the films fit together. With The Cloverfield Paradox as the future-set linchpin of the whole thing, we now know that Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane took place in far different worlds, at different times; so if you ever wondered why the characters in 10 Cloverfield Lane had zero memory of a giant monster attacking America around 10 years prior, it’s because that didn’t happen in their world.

All the movies are different timelines,” notes Reddit’s YamiNoMatsuei, who whipped up a simple and incredibly handy chart that makes this madness easy to understand.

The events of The Cloverfield Paradox rips holes in space time and Clovers deposit themselves across different worlds at different points in time,” he explains.

A cop-out explanation crow-barred into the previously unrelated God Particle to sort of make sense of a disparate, ill-defined universe? Pretty much, yeah. Furthermore, the 10-years-deep Cloverfield ARG offered up FAR more compelling connections between the films than Cloverfield Paradox‘s simplified cop-out. So this gets a big ole sigh from me.

The next film is set in the 1940s, during World War II. You can see where this is going.

 

Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

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Exclusive ‘The First Omen’ Featurette Video Previews Connection to the Original Horror Classic

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The Omen

20th Century Studios’ The First Omen is a true prequel to The Omen, arriving almost fifty years after the Richard Donner-directed horror classic introduced Antichrist Damien Thorn and terrified audiences. The film’s legacy is front and center in an exclusive new featurette.

First released in 1976, The Omen stars Gregory Peck as affluent diplomat Robert Thorn. It begins on June 6, at 6 am in Rome, where Robert Thorn learns his newborn has died, and the Church convinces him to accept an orphaned infant in its place. Robert’s wife, Kathy (Lee Remick), is none the wiser.

As the child, Damien, turns five, it coincides with a wave of strange happenings and coincidences that leads Robert down a harrowing journey where he’ll discover his adoptive son may be the Antichrist.

Written by David SeltzerThe Omen was a massive commercial success upon release in theaters. Donner injected plenty of dread and shocking deaths, but the film also earned its place in the pantheon of horror classics for an unsettling performance by child actor Harvey Spencer Stephens as Damien and a number of iconic scenes, including the “All for You, Damien!” hanging that arrives a mere 13 minutes into the film.

Watch the featurette below to learn more about The Omen‘s legacy and its connections to the upcoming prequel, The First Omen.

Nell Tiger Free (“Servant”) stars in The First Omen, alongside Tawfeek Barhom (“Mary Magdalene”), Sonia Braga (“Kiss of the Spider Woman”), Ralph Ineson (The Witch, Onyx the Fortuitous), and Bill Nighy (“Living”).

In the film, “When a young American woman is sent to Rome to begin a life of service to the church, she encounters a darkness that causes her to question her own faith and uncovers a terrifying conspiracy that hopes to bring about the birth of evil incarnate.”

The new movie is directed by Arkasha Stevenson, based on characters created by David Seltzer (“The Omen”), with a story by Ben Jacoby (“Bleed”) and a screenplay by Tim Smith & Arkasha Stevenson and Keith Thomas (Firestarter).

The First Omen releases in theaters on April 5, 2024.

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