Claim: 10 Cloverfield Lane is a film in a franchise.

10 Cloverfield Lane is a 2016 American science fiction psychological thriller film directed by Dan Trachtenberg , produced by J. J. Abrams and Lindsey Weber and written by Josh Campbell , Matthew Stucken and Damien Chazelle . The film stars John Goodman , Mary Elizabeth Winstead , and John Gallagher , Jr. , and is the second film in the Cloverfield franchise . The film was developed from a script titled The Cellar , but under production by Bad Robot , it was turned into a spiritual successor of the 2008 film Cloverfield . The film follows a young woman who , after a car crash , wakes up in an underground bunker with two men who insist that an event has left the surface of Earth uninhabitable .   The film is presented in a third-person narrative , in contrast to its predecessor 's found-footage style . It was released in the United States on March 11 , 2016 , in conventional and IMAX format . The film received positive reviews from critics , with many praising the performances of the cast , as well as the film 's tense and suspenseful atmosphere , and grossed $ 110 million worldwide .