10 Cloverfield Lane: JJ Abrams has secretly made a Cloverfield sequel and here's the trailer

Turns out the Star Wars director's pulled a fast one on us all

10 Cloverfield Lane (YouTube)

In this internet day and age, it's hard to do anything in secret, let alone make a sequel to a hit film under everybody's noses; a secret album, perhaps - but a secret film is, quite frankly, unheard of.

Not for JJ Abrams; the Star Wars: The Force Awakens director has just provided further evidence he's one of the most creative cinematic showmen around by groundbreakingly dropping a trailer for a Cloverfield sequel that nobody was expecting.

Audiences who had ventured out to see new Michael Bay thriller 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi got more than they bargained for when they were privy to the first showing of a trailer for a film titled 10 Cloverfield Lane.

It seems the much-discussed sequel to Matt Reeves' 2008 monster movie hasn't just been confirmed - it's been completed.

Collider reached out to distributor Paramount Pictures who responded with an official statement from Abrams, who has produced the movie:

"The idea came up a long time ago during production. We wanted to make it a blood relative of Cloverfield. The idea was developed over time. We wanted to hold back the title for as long as possible."

Mission accomplished, then, considering the film opens (in the US, anyway) on 11 March; that's less than two months away.

Initially titled The Cellar - followed by Valencia - the Bad Robot film was known to be in production, with John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Gallagher, Jr. starring and first-timer Dan Trachtenberg directing.

Strangely, the trailer for the equally-as-mysterious Cloverfield premiered back in 2007 ahead of another Bay film (Transformers).

The sequel won't be a direct follow-on from the Matt Reeves-directed thriller, merely existing within the same universe. It also seems as though 10 Coverfield Lane won't be filmed in the found-footage format either (cue sighs of relief).