Not content to show off its 2023 slate, Paramount’s CinemaCon presentation offered a few sneak peeks at next year’s releases. John Krasinski took to the stage to offer the first look at the next “Quiet Place” movie.
Written and directed by Michael Sarnoski (who helmed Nicolas Cage’s “Pig”), the New York-set prequel will star Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, Djimon Hounsou and Denis O’Hare. The producers include Krasinski, Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller. Allyson Seeger and Vicki Dee Rock will executive produce.
The footage audiences saw a bustling New York City where Nyong’o is half-asleep on a bus while petting her cat. She steps to the back of the bus only to realize that the world has almost instantly plunged into hell, with ravaged buildings and catastrophic explosions. The rest is a quick montage of Nyong’o trying to survive as the aliens essentially destroy the world. The film is billed as “the day the world went quiet.”
“A Quiet Place Part II” opened with an extended look at the day the sound-sensitive aliens arrived, which at the time felt like a glorified backdoor pilot for exactly this kind of spin-off. It worked within the context of the film, while also allowing Krasinski’s killed-off patriarch to reprise without negating his mournful fate in the first “A Quiet Place,” so win/win.
That picture was tracking for a $55-$60 million opening in March of 2020 when COVID closed down the theaters, and then it opened with $57 million over Memorial Day weekend 2021. That “exactly as projected” performance was yet more evidence, following “Godzilla Vs. Kong,” that audiences would still show up for the tentpoles they wanted to see before the pandemic changed the release schedules. The $60 million-budgeted sequel earned $297 million worldwide, which was awfully close to the first film’s $341 million worldwide total back in 2018.
Unlike “Cruella 2,” “The Jungle Cruise 2” or “Wonder Woman 3,” which were announced in 2020 and 2021 to create the false impression of theatrical or streaming success, “A Quiet Place: Day One” actually earned its green light the old-fashioned way. Whether audiences care about the world of “A Quiet Place” in the abstract, as opposed to the adventures of the Abbott Family, remains to be seen. But as long as the budget is closer to the $17 million original than the $60 million sequel, it’s a bet Paramount can afford to make.
Krasinksi also introduced the first look at his next directorial effort, a star-packed and specifically kid-targeted fantasy called “IF.” The Ryan Reynolds-starring vehicle opens May 24, 2024 and features Krasinski, Fiona Shaw, Cailey Fleming, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Louis Gossett Jr., Alan S. Kim, Steve Carell, Bobby Moynihan, Matt Damon, Jon Stewart, Emily Blunt, Maya Rudolph, Sam Rockwell, Sebastian Maniscalco, Christopher Meloni, Richard Jenkins, Awkwafina and Vince Vaughn.
The mix of live-action and animation concerns the world of imaginary friends. The clip is a behind-the-scenes featurette. Reynolds describes the film as a live-action Pixar flick. Krasinski says the film is about a young girl who gets the ability to see her and everyone else’s imaginary friends. The imaginary friends are, of course, represented by adorable animated characters voiced by various movie stars.
