GOD PARTICLE Star Had No Clue She Was Making a CLOVERFIELD Movie

A week or so ago, we heard that the J.J. Abrams-produced sci-fi film God Particle (which is probably just a temporary working title) is going to be the third entry in the Cloverfield franchise. But that's news to Gugu Mbatha-Raw, the actress who starred in the movie. Production has wrapped, and when ScreenCrush asked how the new movie would fit into the slowly-emerging "Cloververse," she seemed surprised:

I actually have no idea. That is news to me. When I did the project it was a total standalone sci-fi, space thriller. So I couldn’t tell you how it’s connected. I don’t know if that’s just a rumor.

Remember, this is an Abrams-produced project, so secrecy is of the utmost importance. Of course she's not going to let any details slip this early. But this isn't too surprising. If you remove a couple of very small references to companies like Kelvin Gas and Bold Futura from 10 Cloverfield Lane, that movie wouldn't have any direct correlation to the first Cloverfield film from 2008. I imagine this film will feature similarly small connections, maybe even some so small that they could be added digitally in post after production wrapped, theoretically leaving the actors in the dark about what kind of film they were really making.

God Particle is directed by Julis Onah (The Girl Is in Trouble) and stars Mbatha-Raw, David Oyelewo, John Krasinski, Chris O'Dowd, Daniel Bruhl, Ziyi Zhang, and Elizabeth Debicki. It arrives in theaters on February 24, 2017. Here's the synopsis:

After a physics experiment with a large hadron accelerator causes the Earth to seemingly vanish completely, the terrified crew of an orbiting American space station is left floating in the middle of now-even-more-empty space. When a European spacecraft appears on their radar, the Americans must determine whether it’s their salvation, or a harbinger of doom.