J.J. Abrams has confirmed that The End of Oak Street is not a secret instalment in the Cloverfield franchise, despite widespread fan speculation. The connection is instead creative: both projects involve Abrams and Bad Robot’s taste for high-concept science fiction and deliberately mysterious storytelling, rather than a shared fictional universe.

The speculation was prompted by Abrams’s role as producer, the film’s earlier title, Flowervale Street, and its plot involving a cosmic event, displaced suburbia and dinosaurs. However, The End of Oak Street is a Warner Bros. release, while Cloverfield is owned by Paramount, making a direct crossover unlikely; the new film is written and directed by David Robert Mitchell and stars Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor.