Here’s Why Paramount Pictures Sold The Cloverfield Project To Netflix

Paramount Pictures’ COO Andrew Gumpert explained why they decided to sell the third Cloverfield movie, The Cloverfield Paradox, to Netflix.

The Cloverfield Paradox turned out to be an incredible marketing success. We don’t know how many people ended up streaming the movie on Netflix, but we do know that it was a lot and the film reached more people on the streaming platform than it would have done if it had been given a traditional cinema release.

The Cloverfield Paradox was sold to Netflix, and it was announced just hours before dropping online at the Super Bowl. Now that’s a marketing masterstroke because what did the millions of people watching the Super Bowl do after the game was finished? Turned on Netflix and watched The Cloverfield Paradox.

But how did Paramount Pictures come to the decision to sell the movie to Netflix and why? Well, Paramount’s COO, Andrew Gumpert, spoke to Variety about this and shone some light on the deal.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Ava Hamilton in The Cloverfield Paradox

“The movie was finished, we all reviewed it together with J.J. [Abrams] and his team. We all decided there were things about it that made us have a pause about its commercial playability in the traditional matter,” said Gumpert.

“There was an ability for us to be fiscally prudent and monetise”, he said, using marketing speak that we movie lovers adore hearing. To put it in Lehman’s terms, what he meant was selling the film’s rights to Netflix. “For fans of Cloverfield, the fact is many, many more millions of people saw the movie. It’s a positive on every level.”

So basically, they watched the movie, didn’t know how to sell it and probably thought it wasn’t great and then debated on how not to lose loads of money on it. Answer: sell the film to Netflix for $40 or $50 million (we’re not quite sure how much it was, but it was in that ballpark) and not spend a dime on the film’s distribution and marketing.

As for Cloverfield 4, we’re still not sure what it’ll be, but rumours are suggesting that Julius Avery’s Overlord which is said to be set in World War II, will turn out to be part of the Cloverfield universe.

What did you think about Paramount selling The Cloverfield Paradox to Netflix? Did you like the movie? Let us know in the comments below.