One of the biggest mainstream horror franchises to emerge in the last handful of years is undoubtedly A Quiet Place. It wasn’t originally intended to be one but when the first movie became a huge hit, Paramount Pictures was quick to capitalize on the success. This year will see the third entry in the series – a prequel titled A Quiet Place: Day One – hit theaters this summer. While very little has been said about the film up to this point, star Alex Wolff recently suggested that it’s going to be more of a drama than a horror movie.
The actor recently spoke with Discussing Film and, understandably, he couldn’t say much about the film. But Wolff explained that director Michael Sarnoski, who he previously worked with on 2021’s Pig, has what sounds like a pretty character-focused approach to this universe. Here’s what he had to say about it:
“That’s not a horror movie, not really. I might get in trouble for saying that. It’s from the director of Pig, this film I did, so it’s very… It’s more a drama. It’s weird going from a $2 million movie to a $100 million movie, and working with the same director and in the same proximity [as the other actors]. There’s only about four or five characters in it. So it was kinda like making Pig, just on a massive scale.”
The prequel also stars Lupita Nyong’o (Us) and Denis O’Hare (American Horror Story), who presumably make up a couple of those other characters. Now, let’s try to read between the lines of what Wolff is truly saying here. Are there still going to be mysterious deadly monsters from space threatening humanity? Of course. As the title implies, this is going to showcase the first day that they arrived, which we’ve only seen glimpses of previously in the first scene of A Quiet Place: Part II. But it’s not just going to be a straight-up horror show either. Wolff seemed to know that his words might get him in trouble, and indeed there is a way to misinterpret what he’s trying to get across here. And let’s be clear, as the star of Hereditary and Old, Wolff knows his way around a horror movie.
Part of what made director John Krasinski’s first two films work so well is that they were, in essence, well-thought-out dramas that featured compelling characters who were living in a world filled with monsters. Given that Paramount hired a guy like Sarnoski to direct the spin-off rather than a more obvious horror and/or action director says a lot about what they want to do with the film. Putting in my two cents, this very much sounds like a good thing for fans of the first two films – and I am a big fan.
A Quiet Place: Day One is set to hit theaters on June 28.
