Lupita Nyong'o to Headline Paramount's 'A Quiet Place: Day One'
The iconic actor continues to jump from one big franchise to the next
Just days before reprising her role as Nakia in the sure to be monster hit Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the Academy Award winning actress has been tapped by Paramount Pictures to lead A Quiet Place: Day One, a spinoff to the studio’s highly successful horror series. A standalone from the main franchise co-written and directed by John Krasinski, the film will be directed by Pig filmmaker Michael Sarnoski based off an idea by Krasinski.
Much like the characters in the movies, Paramount are staying silent about plot details regarding this new instalment and where it fits in the ultimate Quiet Place universe. The original film and its sequel are set on a modern day post-apocalyptic Earth where monsters that cannot see have invaded and destroyed society. Despite their visual limitations, these creatures have a special way of hearing sound waves to collect and kill their human prey forcing the survivors to avoid speaking as much as possible to live another day. Real life couple Krasinski and Emily Blunt played Lee and Evelyn Abbott who must protect their three children(one of whom is deaf) from these beasts.
On a $17 million budget, 2018’s A Quiet Place grossed an amazing $341 million worldwide and although initially intended as a standalone movie, a sequel was immediately greenlit. After numerous delays due to the pandemic(it’s initial release was pushed back days after its world premiere), Part 2 was finally released theatrically in May 2021 and made just under $300 million worldwide during the early COVID recovery era. Eager to build on this success, Paramount not only commissioned a third film that will see Krasinski back at the helm but also this spin off to create an original movie universe not based on any pre existing property. The studio initially hired Jeff Nichols to helm but after leaving due to creative differences settled on Sarnoski based on the acclaim he received for Pig.
With her casting, Nyong’o adds another strong role to a career that started almost a decade ago. Her film debut as the tragic slave Patsey in Steve McQueen’s 2013 Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave earned her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. With that statue already in her grasp, she immediately became both a red carpet favourite and an in demand actress with roles in Queen of Katwe, the Star Wars sequel trilogy and of course Black Panther. Nyong’o is also no stranger to horror cinema as she earned rave reviews and even awards buzz for her double performance in Jordan Peele’s Us and it is very possible that past success played a big role in Paramount landing her the lead in this.
For a film that cost under $20 million, it’s pretty amazing to see A Quiet Place becoming this potential world building franchise usually reserved for comic book films and sci-fi/fantasy series. Even more so as this is one series being started from the ground up and not on any other IP. Although it could have easily been a one off, the success of the sequel gave hope that Paramount really has something special with this series and I’m excited to see how Sarnoski and Nyong’o combine their talents to the spin off and see what it all leads to and how it builds on what Krasinski created. Plus given the current box office gold mine horror has seen in recent years, this should no doubt be another success at the turnstiles when it hits theatres March 8, 2024