They'll give any movie a sequel these days
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Zap2it reported on the 31st (yes I'm coming to this late) that Paramount wants J. J. Abrams and company to give them a sequel to Cloverfield, even though the film burst out of the gate in its first weekend, only to splatter itself all over the pavement in its second and third weekend stints at the box office. I don't know if that's actually true or not, and Paramount will certainly be in a good position to rethink those cravings after it's seen what Abrams can do with its Trek franchise.
That could go either way, you know. This will be the most expensive Trek film so far, and none of them have been blockbusters. I can't really see Abrams bringing in a fanbase of his own yet, and the Trek feature film crowd has been getting smaller and smaller every year, though that can be attributed to the successive bad films Rick Berman and company have been crapping out ever since The Next Generation went off the air.
Give the guy a chance to see what he can do with it, sure, even though "rebooting" the franchise wasn't even his idea. J. Michael Straczynski and Bryce Zabel got there a couple of years before Abrams did you know, so lets give the real credit for inspiration where it's due. But can he make it work, or was Paramount right after Enterprise was canceled, believing that people were simply sick of Trek, and that it needed to go away for a while to let people catch their breath and get hungry for it all over again.
That plan -- I think they wanted the break to last five years or more -- only ended up being one or two before wonder boy here landed the job of the century.
But back to the matter at hand; why order up a sequel to a film that made a profit based on hype, and then fell apart based on people's reaction to the film itself? If they believe in Abrams, Matt Reeves, and Drew Goddard, why not let them come up with something fresh that might have a real chance at catching on?
Seems like a waste of time and money, and yet that really is the way this town operates on the film side of the business now. It doesn't matter if your film cost $50 to make, or $250,000,000, if it comes home with a 50-cent profit, then it gets shoved into the "known property" category which gets first, second, and even third looks before original material is ever considered. There will be three Cloverfield's before Paramount would consider buying an original script, now that they've got one that already made a profit.
Even if it was only a dime, relative to what other movies make and cost.
Thoughts, anyone? Do we need more city-wide destruction at the hands of Abram's baby monster?
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