A Quiet Place landed with a thundering cha-ching when it hit theaters last April, prompting Paramount to almost immediately announce that a sequel was in the works with “the same group of people that made the first film.” Wh0 those people were remained unclear, but apparently director and star John Krasinski didn’t plan on being one of them.
That’s since changed, however. The Hollywood Reporter recounts a Q&A discussion with Krasinski on Wednesday at Los Angeles’ Silver Screen Theatre, where the one-time Jim Halpert dealt an unblinking, mildly patronizing look at the audience before confirming that, yes, he is currently writing the sequel.
He says his sequel was only a “small idea,” which is why he urged the producers to “go do the movie with somebody else.” After mulling it over a bit more, presumably in a soundproofed basement filled with whiteboards and loose scraps of electrical equipment, Krasinski and producer Drew Form decided they dug the idea and decided to move forward.
While he doesn’t elaborate on his vision, it could very well swirl around some remarks he made to Deadline back in May. “The thing that I loved in the movie,” he said at the time, “where my mind kept wandering as we were making it, was the question of who was on the other end of those fires, when the father lights the fire and in the distance those other fires light up. How did those people survive? How did that old man survive?”
He continued, “In the extreme these characters are going through, there’s no room to think about that. They’re there, there’s an old man who’s about to scream, they just have to deal with that. I think it would be interesting to see what’s going on elsewhere at this same time.”
A Quiet Place extended universe anyone? Why the hell not. A Quiet Place: A Little Too Quiet, If You Ask Me is slated to open on May 15, 2020.