JJ Abrams: R-rated Overlord isn’t a Cloverfield sequel, is crazy

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Rumors have been spreading around for over a year now that Bad Robot Productions' project OVERLORD, a horror movie set during World War II, was the fourth installment in the company's CLOVERFIELD anthology. In fact, earlier this year it seemed to be confirmed that OVERLORD was indeed CLOVERFIELD 4.

Yesterday, Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures unveiled some footage from OVERLORD at CinemaCon, a convention that's currently going on in Las Vegas, and during a taped intro Bad Robot's J.J. Abrams denied that OVERLORD is part of the CLOVERFIELD series – but he did say that the movie is "batshit", and revealed that it's Bad Robot's first R-rated production.

The JoBlo Movie Network's own Paul Shirey is at CinemaCon and was part of the audience that got to see the OVERLORD footage. His description: 

The footage we saw featured Wyatt Russell, Bokeem Woodbine and a cast of relative unknowns in traditional WW2 paratrooper gear jumping in as planes blow up around them, before finally getting to the ground, linking up and heading out. We see them discover the heavily-guarded facility and infiltrate it, which is when everything gets a little crazy. We see a bunch of bloody, zombie-like creatures, obviously people that have been experimented on, vials of a red substance (which is injected into one of the soldiers and seems to give him super strength), and a bunch of shooting, explosions and yelling. It's accompanied with a rock soundtrack and plays very much like a Grindhouse film, which is an eye-brow raising choice, but not necessarily in a bad way. Toward's the end of the footage, we see a Soldier approaching a woman who is calling out and covered up with a sheet. The soldier pulls it back to reveal that she is just a head, connected to a spine and stripped of the rest of her body, yet still alive and talking. Batshit, indeed.

This sounds so much more amazing than I ever imagined it would be.

Based on a story Abrams wrote with screenwriter Billy Ray a decade ago, OVERLORD centers on 

two paratroopers who are caught behind enemy lines after their plane crashes on a mission to destroy a German Radio Tower in a small town outside of Normandy during the D-Day invasion. After reaching their target, the two paratroopers come to realize that besides fighting off Nazi soldiers, they also must combat against supernatural forces that are a result of a secret Nazi experiment.

The film was directed by Julius Avery and stars Wyatt Russell, Bokeem Woodbine, Jovan Adepo, Jacob Anderson, Dominic Applewhite, Pilou Asbaek, Iain de Caestecker, John Magaro, and Mathilde Ollivier.

If you're disappointed that OVERLORD isn't a CLOVERFIELD movie, maybe this will help: during his intro, Abrams confirmed that there is another CLOVERFIELD sequel in the works and it's coming soon – to theatres, not Netflix like this year's THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX (pictured above).

Meanwhile, OVERLORD is expected to reach theatres on October 26, 2018.

JJ Abrams sent in a message and a first look at Overlord. Clarified it’s not a Cloverfield movie, but they ARE developing a proper sequel to that as well. Calls the movie “batshit” and sharing that it is Bad Robot’s first R-rated film. #cinemacon

— JoBlo.com (@joblocom) April 26, 2018

Overlord tells the story of some paratroopers that jump in on D-Day and find themselves trapped in a Nazi experiment building where they encounter all manner of zombie-like experiments. It’s like a grindhouse horror flick. #CinemaCon

— JoBlo.com (@joblocom) April 26, 2018