Umm, Did J.J. Abrams Just Drop The Trailer For A “Cloverfield” Sequel?

J.J., you sly dog!

Unwitting Americans who sat down to enjoy (?) Michael Bay’s 13 Hours this evening were met with a mysterious new trailer from J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures.

Oh yeah, and it just might be the long-awaited sequel to the Abrams-produced found footage disaster movie Cloverfield from 2007.

The teaser begins with John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Gallagher Jr playing happy family. So far, so unremarkable.

Then, we discover they’re in an underground bunker. Okay, slightly more intriguing…

Finally, Winstead makes a run for it and we’re met with the film’s title: 10 Cloverfield Lane.

It’s at this point that presumably everyone in the theatre lost their minds.

Is it possible that Abrams and pals quietly magicked up a new Cloverfield movie without the blogosphere finding out? And did they use the maximum-strength security blanket afforded to Bad Robot during the making of Star Wars: The Force Awakens to do so?

To help clarify - barely - Abrams issued a statement to Collider following the trailer’s debut describing it as “a blood relative of Cloverfield” rather than a strict sequel.

“The idea came up a long time ago during production,” he explained.

“We wanted to make it a blood relative of Cloverfield. The idea was developed over time. We wanted to hold back the title for as long as possible.”

Presumably, we won’t learn much more about 10 Cloverfield Lane until it arrives in cinemas this March. What we do know, however, is that it was directed by Dan Trachtenberg and has been co-written by Whiplash’s Damien Chazelle.

Whiplash is right. Seriously: Who saw this coming?