God Particle Writer Explains How It Became A Cloverfield Movie

When Oren Uziel wrote the upcoming sci-fi thriller God Particle, he didn't know it would be the third installment in the Cloverfield franchise. But once J.J. Abrams gets involved, you sort of have to go with the flow.

Like 10 Cloverfield Lane, which was originally a self-contained movie called Valencia before being adapted into a Cloverfield sequel, Uziel told Collider that God Particle was tweaked to loosely fit into Bad Robot's expanded monster movie universe. It's about a team of astronauts who make a "shocking discovery" and have to fight to survive in what's described as an "altered reality." Julis Onah (The Girl Is in Trouble) directed the film starring David Oyelowo, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ziyi Zhang, Elizabeth Debicki, Daniel Brühl, and Chris O'Dowd.

"It was written before 10 Cloverfield Lane and the expanded Cloverfield universe even existed as a thing," he said. "It definitely existed as its own science-fiction. And then after years of, you know how scripts kind of hang around—people like them but for whatever reason they decided to make it and then suddenly everything fell into place with J.J. [Abrams], Bad Robot, and Paramount. I don't know exactly when it became a Cloverfield movie, but I suspect in this current market where it's just harder and harder to market an original movie of any kind, a science-fiction movie in particular, but I think everyone just knew if it fits–and it does–into that Cloverfield world, it should, and it can only help."

Uziel said the script was rewritten during production. "I'm not sure what it means to be part of the expanded Cloverfield universe, other than knowing what kind of quality and feel you're gonna get from something that's coming out of Bad Robot and J.J.," he said. "It just sort of helps to give an understanding of like, 'Okay I understand what type of movie this is gonna be.' As far as specifics, I don't think there is one specific thread that makes it a Cloverfield movie, I guess."

While he didn't offer up any plot details, Uziel did hint that Cloverfield might become Abrams' version of an eclectic anthology series.

"I think if you can get that off the ground, which they are close, it's very smart and also great for makers of science-fiction because it relieves you of that burden of like, 'How are we gonna get people to get off their asses and into the movie theater to see something they're not sure [about]?' It's not a guarantee," he said. "The cast is different, we don't know exactly what we're getting, but if that stamp of approval of being part of the Cloverfield universe is enough, that's a huge win. So I'm all for it. When you turn on The Twilight Zone, that's sort of the way I think about it. I don't know what this story is going to be, but I know it's going to be a Twilight Zone story... It's like an anthology for those kinds of movies, and I think if J.J., if what he's doing is positioning himself a little bit to be the Rod Serling of J.J.-type science-fiction movies, more power to him."

We'll find out more (but probably not a whole lot) as we get closer to the release date on Oct. 27. While we wait, check out a few unanswered questions we still have about 10 Cloverfield Lane.