A Quiet Place Part II, which opens in theaters in USA this week will pose a much-watched stress test for the industry’s theatrical future as a slew of summer releases are awaiting release in the big screens this year. John Krasinski's horror sequel is one of the biggest studio releases to open exclusively in theaters in 2021.
A premiere for the film that also stars Krasinski's wife Emily Blunt and Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy, was held in New York on March 8, 2020, and its opening-weekend box office was expected to exceed $50 million. But as many other films were sold off to streaming services (including Paramount’s own “Coming 2 America” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7”), but Krasinski recently opened up about how his movie is predicated not just on science-fiction spectacle but an immersive and chilling sound design.
"For me, it was non-negotiable. We designed this movie to be for theaters, specifically,” Krasinski said in a recent interview by Zoom from his home in Brooklyn during a break from shooting the Amazon series “Jack Ryan.” “I said I really wanted to wait for theaters and they supported it from the very beginning. Even more so, I give them so much credit for going with me on being this early."
The first movie of the franchise, A Quiet Place, which was also written and directed by Krasinski, followed the Abbott family (played by Krasinski, Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe and an infant) in an upstate New York dystopia where creatures with hypersensitive hearing stalk the land, ruthlessly hunting by sound. It was a hit, grossing $340 million globally on a $17 million budget. Pressure for a sequel, naturally, grew.
“I was like, no, just preserve it,” Blunt said in an interview last year. “Paramount said we’re going to make one, whether we were a part of it or not. I think that was what they wanted. But John just then came up with the most undeniable idea.”