It’s official: The A Quiet Place sequel is happening. Paramount Pictures announced today a Quiet Place 2 release date for May 15, 2020, which firmly puts the horror follow-up on the studio’s calendar, making it a priority. The first film was an original story scripted by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, and when John Krasinski was offered the film as a starring vehicle, he pitched a few changes to the screenplay and his intention to direct. Paramount sparked to the idea, Krasinski starred alongside his real-life wife Emily Blunt, and the film was a massive success earlier this year grossing $332 million worldwide against a budget of just $17 million.
Krasinski did an impeccable job behind the camera, fleshing out an engaging world in which Earth is plagued by aliens who have no sight and hunt using sound, but grounding the entire film with an emotional center. When it was first revealed that a sequel was being developed, fans were curious if Krasinski would be back in the director’s chair. After all, A Quiet Place was the kind of monster hit that gives a filmmaker clout to get bigger or more ambitious projects made.
I put that question to producer Andrew Form earlier this year, who assured me Krasinski will be intimately involved in A Quiet Place 2 even though at that time, it was unclear if he’d be directing:
“Oh [Krasinski is] definitely involved. We’re lucky on this one. I’ve had movies where the studio says to you, ‘Here’s your date. Let’s go!’ and on this one we’re not rushing anything, which is amazing. So we’re gonna take our time, we’re gonna figure out where to go, but there is no rush on it and we’re just starting to talk about it. We’re figuring out what everyone’s involvement’s gonna be and what the actual next movie’s gonna be. The first one is so special to us that we really want to take our time with this and not rush anything.”
Form stressed that they weren’t in any hurry to rush a subpar sequel to hit a release date:
“It’s such a special movie to us, the experience and everything. It’s easy to rush these and we’ve made movies in the past where we’ve rushed them through and we’ve felt it, and we just don’t wanna do it on this one. We really don’t. We really just wanna take our time and as long as it takes, it takes. It has to be the right story, just like the first one. It just has to be.”
Given Form’s comments, one has to assume that the producers and Krasinski have found a story worth telling. The question now will be whether that involves the surviving characters from the first film, or if the sequel will explore other areas of the Quiet Place universe.
The May 15th date is a vote of confidence on Paramount’s part, putting A Quiet Place 2 at the beginning of the summer movie season. Currently an untitled Marvel film is dated for May 1st, while May 22nd will see the release of Godzilla vs. Kong. On that May 15th date, Warner Bros. has an animated Scooby-Doo movie and Universal has an untitled comedy from filmmaker Will Packer.
