FADE IN:

INT. ORBITING SPACE STATION NAMED - CLOVERFIELD, RUH ROH

Near-future astronaut GUGU MBATHA-RAW talks to her HUSBAND back on NEAR-FUTURE EARTH, which will RUN OUT of ENERGY in the NEAR-FUTURE NEAR FUTURE!

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

Gosh I sure hope our experimental orbiting particle acclerator manages to create infinite energy, since that's only FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE. But we need to find an inexhaustible power source or Earth is fucked!

HUSBAND

What do you mean, "find" a source? Did we all forget about the sun? Or wind? Or hydroelectri-

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

Fuck that shit! It's not like with the 800 zemptillion dollars it took to build this massive untested space station, we could have covered half North America with solar and wind farms, THIS IS THE ONLY WAY

HUSBAND

Very well. Just remember you have photos of me and our dead kids to build your entire characterization on, if you need it.

INT. OPENING CREDITS

During the credits, we see the rest of the CREW while they TRY and FAIL to make the accelerator work over the course of TWO YEARS wait, really? TWO WHOLE GODDAMN YEARS and STILL nobody's built a few windmills just for shits and giggles? Oooookay...

DAVID OYELOWO

Time for daily briefing! I'm Captain so it's my job to glare at everybody as they keep trying and failing to make the accelerator work.

DANIEL BRUHL

Well it seems mostly me and Zhang Ziyi who are in charge of failing to make it work. The rest of you kind of stand around.

CHRIS O'DOWD

Hey, I'm in charge of comic relief lines! I get, like, all three of them!

AKSEL HENNIE

Grr, I am in charge of being Russian! Also I hate Daniel Bruhl soooo much! YOU MADE CAP AND TONY FIGHT YOU BASTARD

(attacks)

DAVID OYELOWO

(breaking it up)

That's enough! Listen up crew, we have only enough fuel for THREE MORE attempts. What are we trying this time? Not that it seems we do anything different between trials, but...

ZHANG ZIYI

For this test run I unplugged the modem, waited two minutes, and plugged it back in. I think that'll do it!

JOHN ORTIZ

As the medical officer, I should probably be at the ready in case a horrible malfunction gets somebody injured NAH FUCK THAT gonna watch TV.

On the TV an interview with DONAL LOGUE is happening.

DONAL LOGUE

I'm telling you, we need to worry about The Cloverfield Paradox! It's the name of the movie so you know I'm on to something!

INTERVIEWER

And what is this Cloverfield Paradox exactly?

DONAL LOGUE

If they turn on the accelerator and smash the Higgs-Boson particle, it could unleash monsters and demons across all space and time! Because, uh, they didn't carry the three, or whatever.

INTERVIEWER

(pause)

Okay that's not a paradox, that's just bullshit. A paradox would be like if we'd built a logic machine that says "This sentence is false". You can fuck off now.

They TURN ON the accelerator!

DANIEL BRUHL

OMG guys, it's working! We're generating power! Lots and lots of power! Lots and lots and OH SHIT I THINK WE GOT TOO MUCH POWER DUDES, SHIT'S OVERLOADING

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

Fuck! Who'd have thought an infinite power machine might overload our finite power storage!!!

SPARKS FLY and BRIGHT LIGHTS FLASH and BLOOOOEYY BLORRP BLOOG!!! When things calm down EARTH IS GONE!!

DAVID OYELOWO

What the fuck just happened? Where are we?

GUGU MBWATHA-RAW

I don't know, the huge metal gyro that we need to calculate our position is gone!! Anyone see where it went?

AKSEL HENNIE

BBELLLLLLCHHHHHHH nope, sorry.

DAVID OYELOWO

Right, everyone rush about the station! Look for any damage, malfunctions, and possibly the TARDIS because around now would be the part where the Doctor shows up.

Searching, they find a strange NOISE coming from inside a WALL! Displaying a fine-tuned sense of GENRE AWARENESS, they all crowd around it face-first and pop open the wall panel to find... ELIZABETH DEBICKI!!

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

Holy shit she's totally fused inside the wall, with cables running right through her and shit! Ack! We gotta cut her out!

ELIZABETH DEBICKI

Woah woah woah, this looks like a superposition scenario where your station materialized onto me, meaning we fused at a molecular level, you can't just "pull out" these cables like I was impaled by them...

JOHN ORTIZ

Says you!

(yanks out cables)

ELIZABETH DEBICKI

YOUCH well now I have a swiss-cheese body so yeah I'm just gonna pass out okay

INT. EARTH - BEDROOM

GUGU'S HUSBAND is awoken by EXPLOSION SOUNDS! Looking out the window he sees an EXPLOSION!

HUSBAND

That ain't good. But at least this new scene breaks the text up a little bit. Which is more or less the same function this serves in the real movie.

INT. CLOVERFIELD SPACE STATION

DAVID OYELOWO

Right, shit has got weird and we're all in grave freaky danger. Let's split up and tackle this separately.

AKSEL HENNIE

Okay, me and one of my eyes will look over here, while my other eye looks over there HM THAT ISN'T GOOD NOW IS IT

AKSEL darts off and 3D-prints himself a 3D GUN and 3D BULLETS since nobody's busy using it to build a new 3D GYRO or anything. Then he confronts DANIEL!

AKSEL HENNIE

(crazily)

Fuck you Daniel, you're a traitor here to sabotage this project! I checked your logs and we're not getting ANY theatrical distribution, we're just getting dumped on Netflix with no buildup or anything, DAMNN YOUUUUU ARRGHHH

(collapses)

They rush AKSEL to the medical bay!

JOHN ORTIZ

I suspect something is not quite right.

(gallon of worms explode out of Aksel's body)

Hmmm. Could be lupus.

While JOHN searches "SPONTANEOUS FULL-BODY WORM EXPLOSION" on WEB MD, GUGU tries to get more information from ELIZABETH, who has woken up.

ELIZABETH DEBICKI

I'm an astronaut just like you guys, from an alternate dimension in which Earth is ALSO totes fucked. But in my reality, Gugu is back on Earth, I have Ziyi's job, the Leafs got Connor McDavid, and we say Jeopardy answers in the form of answers because, WE GET IT ALREADY. Also Daniel's evil.

DAVID OYELOWO

It's true, Daniel's personal log is full of evilness! And since there's zero evidence of outside forces tampering with our shit, I'm taking it completely at face value! Lock him up!

EXT. BACK ON POOR OL' EARTH

Meanwhile GUGU'S HUSBAND learns that from EARTH'S perspective, the station has vanished completely!

HUSBAND

Well that sucks. Maybe I should go to the hospital I work at.

(hospital blown up)

Shit. Perhaps I'll drive around looking to be useful.

(giant monster walks past)

Crap. Maybe there's someone nearby I can help?

(kid screams in his face)

Why not.

INT. BACK ON CLOVERFIELD STATION

CHRIS is adding FUTURE METAL-SPONGE SEALANT to a thing, making sure we get a GOOD LOOK at the nifty futuristic sealant because WE PUT A LOT OF WORK INTO THIS EFFECT OKAY?!? However as he rests his hand on the wall--

CHRIS O'DOWD

Oh crap my arm sunk RIGHT INTO the wall? I guess we're going for some dimensional-phase-shift thing here...

Suddenly the WALL starts JERKING CHRIS'S ARM ALL OVER THE GODDAMN PLACE!

CHRIS O'DOWD

OR WE COULD JUST DO RANDOM SHIT I GUESS THAT WORKS TOOOOO

The CREW yank CHRIS loose but now his ARM is GONE!

JOHN ORTIZ

I don't understand, it's like he was born that way.

CHRIS O'DOWD

No it fucking isn't, if I were born this way there would be skin covering the end, instead of a nice neat cross-section that shows everything and should be spewing blood like a fucking hydrant. I'm remarkably level-headed about this.

Meanwhile the STATION RELEASES DANIEL just because. He wanders about and finds--

DANIEL BRUHL

Check it out, it's Chris's severed arm, dragging itself down the corridor! This proves we travelled into a parallel dimension.

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

I thought Elizabeth's memories of a parallel dimension proved that. And that photo of the parallel crew from the parallel universe. And-

The SEVERED ARM begins gesturing and they realize it wants to WRITE something, so they finally FREAK THE FUCK OUT get it a PEN.

CHRIS O'DOWD

See now I'm thinking this proves we travelled into the Evil Dead 2 universe.

The ARM tells them to open up AKSEL'S DEAD BODY and rummage inside! They do, and find the missing GYRO!

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

What, this twenty-pound double-fist-sized metal ball was hidden inside Aksel the whole damned time? How the fuck was he not in agonizing pain?!? And how did the fucking severed arm know it was there, or be able to think, or YES YES I KNOW I KNOW, MULTIVERSE INTERFERENCE, WE CAN DO WHATEVER SHIT WE WANT MORP DORP DEE DORP

They plug in the GYRO, allowing the professional trained astronauts to finally identify STAR CONSTELLATIONS and ultimately locate the SUN, which turns out to be its USUAL DISTANCE away so they could have also found it by using a WINDOW. However!

DANIEL BRUHL

Oh crap, look! We flipped to the opposite side of the Sun, and Earth is waaaay over there, millions of miles away!

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

Plus we can hear Earth's transmissions, but not send to them, until a few scenes from now despite nothing having changed! They're saying our counterpart station crashed into the ocean.

ZHANG ZIYI

How the fuck did we superimpose ourselves on the Mirror-station if it crashed back on Earth and we're way the fuck over here?

CHRIS O'DOWD

Maybe we should focus on reaching Mirror-Earth. Trying to get home could be insanely dangerous if it's even possible! Let's listen to their radio some more...

MIRROR-EARTH RADIO

AND IT'S ANOTHER LEGENDARY COMEBACK FOR TOM BRADY AND THE PATRIOTS! THEY ARE 2018 NFL CHAMPIONS! LET'S GO TO OUR NINE-HOUR TRIBUTE VIDEO FEATURING AN ENCORE PERFORMANCE BY JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE

CHRIS O'DOWD

On second thought let's try to get back to our own universe.

DANIEL BRUHL

If we can fire up the accelerator again, it should exactly reverse what it did before, since quantum mechanics follows the Law of Sitcom Amnesia Head-Wounds. C'mon Ziyi!

INT. BACK ON EARTH PRIME - UNDERGROUND BOMB SHELTER PERHAPS LOCATED AT 12 CLOVERFIELD CRESCENT

Meanwhile GUGU'S HUSBAND (being a GOOD MAN) has decided to NOT go home, but take the KID to his buddy's UNDERGROUND BUNKER, WINSTEAD.

HUSBAND

We should be safe here. What's your deal, kid?

CLOVER NEE

Fucked if I know. Basically I'm just here to drive the Internet nuts trying to figure out if that's my real name or not.

INT. BACK ON CLOVERFIELD STATION

DANIEL and ZIYI are hard at work staring at the machine that won't work.

ZHANG ZIYI

Wait a sec! You know how the last billion times we tried this thing, it got full of condensation and steam? Which can be bad for hi-tech electronic shit?

DANIEL BRUHL

Yeah, so?

ZHANG ZIYI

So I just had a wild thought... what if... we VENTED... the condensation?!?!?!

DANIEL BRUHL

(eyes bugging out)

HOLY MOTHER FUCKING EUREKABALLS THAT'S IT, AW YEAH CHECK YOUR SIX GRAND UNIFICATION THEORY, SHE'S COMING FOR YOU NEXT

ZHANG ZIYI

You wait here while I go test my theory by sealing myself in a small room.

(does so)

Oh hey, guess I've left myself open for some mind-bending trippy-shit gruesome death...

(water pipe bursts)

That's kind of pedestrian. Drowning, really?

DANIEL BRUHL

(rushing over)

Oh no the outer hatch is gonna breach! Which, hm, let me check what would actually happen if-

ZHANG ZIYI

Fuck what would actually happen, I want a dramatic special effect dammit! FREEZE ON!

(instantly encased in ice)

Cool.

(dead)

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

Well now we're fucked, Ziyi was the engineer...

ELIZABETH DEBICKI

Luckily, so was I! And I can prove I was the engineer by revealing that to get this thing home WE NEED MORE POWER CAP'N! OCH AYE I'M GIVIN' HER ALL SHE'S GOT, WE NEED MORE POWER! But for real, we need more power.

DAVID OYELOWO

I'm convinced. Everyone look for more power!

(rummages through drawers)

ELIZABETH DEBICKI

(aside)

Oh hey Gugu. Thought I'd mention that on Mirror-Earth, your kids are still alive.

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

What?! Then maybe by going to Mirror-Earth, I can avoid the fatal accident that took their lives, even though it seems they already did that, since they're not dead. Whatever, I wanna see my kids!!

DAVID OYELOWO

In the actual movie I point out that your Mirrorverse self is down there. Your Mirror-kids already have two parents, and if you stay here, Husband Prime will be left alone.

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

Those are good points but fuck that. Look, you guys can go save the billions of people on Earth Prime, I'll go save my two kids, okay? SHEESH

INT. OXYGEN / GUNPOWDER / FIREWORKS / DRYER LINT STORAGE ROOM

CHRIS has come up with a plan to create MORE POWER by diverting the OXYGEN and using MAGNETISM and stuff.

CHRIS O'DOWD

Oh neat, the magnetic field is stretching the metallic sealant-foam to make it look like some kind of tendril. Ha ha. That's pretty keen-

(grabbed)

WHOOPS NOPE IT'S A STRAIGHT-UP EVIL TENDRIL WELL FUCK MEEEEEE

(suffocated)

(possessed)

(blown up)

(exploded)

(kicked in balls)

INT. BRIDGE

CHRIS'S DEATHSPLOSION rocks the entire station!

ELIZABETH DEBICKI

Crap! The maintenance hub is fucked, it's on an angle, and getting worse! If the angle gets too big the whole station is fucked and will rip itself apart!!

DANIEL BRUHL

And if we stop it 0.0000003 degrees short of the critical failure angle?

ELIZABETH DEBICKI

Then we're good.

DAVID OYELOWO

Right. Gugu, John, come with me on a near-certain-death trip to detach the hub!

(they do so)

On second thought I guess only one of us needs to do the suicide mission. Sorry I dragged you all the way down here.

(sacrifices himself)

BYYYEEEE ENJOY THE NEAR-CERTAIN-DEATH TRIP BACK TO THE BRIIIIIDGE

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

God dammit dude.

Once back on the bridge, JOHN and DANIEL prepare to fire up the accelerator while ELIZABETH and GUGU go to the escape pod to head to MIRROR-EARTH.

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

This works out nicely. They'll travel back and save our Earth, while we take the precious secret of "don't let the electronics get wet" to Mirror-Earth so you can built your very own infinite power machine.

ELIZABETH DEBICKI

Except you've forgotten that by the laws of Mirror Universes, we're all evil dicks! Screw you, Gugu!

(knocks out Gugu)

ELIZABETH retrieves the 3D GUN and fatally shoots JOHN! Then for variety's sake she NON-fatally shoots DANIEL. But GUGU wakes up and they FIGHT!!

ELIZABETH DEBICKI

Gugu, think of your kids! Look, I've projected their picture onto the window, that one over there, the non-bulletproof window standing between us and the airless vacuum of space... um... okay wait I feel I may have made a tactical error here...

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

YA THINK?!

(grabs gun)

(shoots window)

ELIZABETH is sucked out into SPACE! GUGU seals up the station, heals DANIEL, and pushes the "restore-ability-to-transmit-messages" button.

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

(jams face into recorder screen)

(emotionally)

This is a message for Mirror-Gugu. Listen carefully. Y'know how you have 400 appliances plugged into one outlet? Maybe don't.

(clicks Send)

(exhales deeply)

(extracts face from video recorder)

Let's go!

GUGU and DANIEL fire up the ACCELERATOR and return to OUR UNIVERSE! Then they fire it up AGAIN and it makes INFINITE POWER, HOORAY!

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

Phew! Now we can triumphantly return to Earth, having provided endless energy without resorting to stupid shit like the Sun or wind or children's laughter or whatever...

GUGU and DANIEL hop into an escape pod and gently parachute through the fluffy clouds, through which emerges AN ENORMOUS GIANT MONSTER THING, OH SHIIIT!! EARTH has become a DOMINION OF TOWERING HELLBEASTS bent on TOTAL OBLITERATION!!!

GUGU MBATHA-RAW

Look it was either this or everyone drives fucking Nissan Leafs, I'm just saying.

END