41 million dollars on a weekend in January?!! Cloverfield?s opening-weekend box-office tally was big enough to not only knock the head off the Statue of Liberty, but park it somewhere in orbit around the Earth. (Even Hollywood celebs are jumping on the bandwagon--have you seen our exclusive video coverage of Cloverfield's premiere?) It?s gonna be damn hard for Paramount to resist green-lighting a sequel to this baby. But will producer J.J. Abrams and Cloverfield?s hot new genius-director Matt Reeves be up for it? We asked Reeves himself when we spoke with him yesterday in New York at the film?s official press junket?

[Note: After reading this, be sure to check out our video interview with the Cloverfield cast, our even more in-depth spoiler-laden interviews with the Cloverfield cast, and our coverage of the upcoming Cloverfield DVD!]

?Sure,? he told us, ?I mean I think if the movie that came out of discussion was interesting and compelling, and I think that that?s true for all of us. I mean I know it?d be true for [writer] Drew [Goddard] and for J.J. I mean it?s really about? This idea was so compelling to do, and we had so much fun in doing it, because we?d never done anything like it. And so I think we?d want to find a similar challenge to this. To find a way to make it have its roots in this, but be sort of fresh and new, because otherwise you?re just repeating yourself. So the key is how to do that.

"One of the things I will say that I thought was really interesting and fun was when we were doing the movie I would look at YouTube footage. And a lot of the footage that?s shot?the style was specifically was taken, ripped off, from amateur footage. It was about ?How do people film themselves? How do people film parties? How do people film each other?? How do people film crises?? People constantly take out their cameras in the middle of these crises. Sometimes you would see footage, and something crazy would be going on while you?re watching this footage. The thing that really caught my attention was that not only was that person filming, but suddenly all these other people were filming. So deliberately in the movie I added extras, like around the head of the Statue of Liberty. When the assistant director came up to me, he said, ?What do you want from me?? I said, ?What I want is for a number of people to pull out their cell phones. I want them to take pictures. I think that?s important.

"Then there was this other one when they were walking on the Brooklyn Bridge. I don?t know why, but this one I really liked?the idea that there is a guy who?s filming off the side of the bridge, and that Hud sees him filming and he turns over and he sees the ship that?s been capsized and he sees the head of the Statue of Liberty and then he turns back, and then this guy?s briefly filming him. So in my mind, that was two movies intersecting, for a brief moment. And I thought there was something really interesting in the idea that this incident happened, and there were so many interesting points of view, and in a way there are several other movies, at least, that are going on that evening; and we just saw one piece of another. That kind of idea sort of tickled me. Now, whether we would actually do that particular movie, and whether or not that would be a sequel, that I couldn?t say, but I know that that was something we really thought was fun, and that I really enjoyed.

"But what we do? We?ll just have to see, we?ll have to see whether or not anyone would even want a sequel. We?ll see how the movie does. If the movie does well, and if there becomes a compelling reason to do so, I think it would be fun to do a sequel.?

With Cloverfield expected to continue smashing box-office records this weekend, Reeves can get started looking for his personal reasons to do a sequel, but odds are that the studio is already eager to move forward, with or without the participation of him and Abrams.