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A Quiet Place, the horror hit directed by John Krasinski, is getting a sequel. Paramount, the studio that backed the blockbuster, announced the news Wednesday at CinemaCon.
“If you told me five years ago that an almost silent film starring the very funny guy Jim from The Office would have been a hit at Paramount, I would have said, ‘Well, I should go work at Paramount,’” studio chief Jim Gianopulos told the audience, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
As T.H.R notes, this horror movie has become the rare, unfettered hit for the plagued studio, which has steadily been losing money thanks to domestic bombs like Monster Trucks and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows—leading Hollywood executives just two years ago to deem Paramount nearly “unsalvageable”.
A Quiet Place, meanwhile, has made $213 million at the worldwide box office so far, a wild sum compared to its $17 million budget. As this was only Krasinski’s third film as a director, and his first horror film in general (he’s admitted he’s no expert in the genre, unlike other debut horror filmmakers like Jordan Peele), it could have easily been another Paramount bomb. Instead, Krasinski surprised audiences with a tense, high-concept thriller that compelled horror fans and critics alike.
A sequel seems like an obvious and well-warranted next move, especially since screenwriters Bryan Woods and Scott Beck have always said they are not only open to the idea, but already have potential sequel concepts in mind.
“There are so many discarded set pieces, too, just hiding out on Word documents on our computer,” Beck recently told Fandango. “So, yeah, there are certainly so many stories you could tell. It’s just really, at the end of the day, who are the characters in this and what does this situation mean to that dynamic?”
Without spoiling too much, the film does conclude with the sort of ending that warrants a sequel. The plot also never dives into the origin of the gross, alien-esque monsters that have invaded this world, leaving plenty of room for the writers and Krasinski to broaden the Quiet Place universe. As Beck and Woods have explained, the film was at one point a potential entry in J.J. Abrams’s Cloverfield series, a cinematic experiment hobbled by the recent release of the truly disappointing Cloverfield Paradox. Since A Quiet Place is firmly in its own lane, its sequel could go in any number of exciting directions.
