A Quiet Place 2: John Krasinski Teases Sequel Details

John Krasinski isn't done hanging around A Quiet Place just yet.

The writer/director/star of this year's smash horror hit recently gave some insight into the forthcoming sequel, which was announced by Paramount back in April. Most interesting among the tidbits of info he doled out: it will not so much be a sequel in the traditional sense.

A Quiet Place was among the most original horror features of recent years, focusing on the plight of one family in the years after Earth has been overrun with blind alien predators who hunt solely by sound. During an in-depth conversation on The Ringer's The Big Picture podcast, Krasinski explained how he initially wanted nothing to do with the project, having already told the story he wanted to tell. "I totally get it, when you're a studio and you have a hit like that, you want another one," he said. "So I said, 'Go with God and get another director and another screenwriter.'"

But to Paramount's credit, Krasinski said that the studio realized that they had a unique property on their hands, and that simply repackaging the same story wasn't likely to fly with the cerebral thriller's audience. Although they had begun discussions with other filmmakers, Paramount's brass sought out Krasinski's opinion on where he would have taken the story, were he to be involved — and, in doing so, basically "Jedi mind-tricked" him into penning the screenplay. "[They said], 'We'll go out to all these other people, but what's the idea? How do we maintain the respect and how do we maintain the level of quality for the audience?'" Krasinski recalled. "They were very well aware that they didn't just make a successful movie; they made a movie that this audience made successful."

The flick's producer asked Krasinski to write down whatever thoughts he had for the benefit of the incoming filmmaking team, which eventually turned into a full-on screenwriting assignment. They were intrigued by his notion that a continuation of the story might not necessarily focus on the first film's surviving characters, but could have free rein to explore "the world that's built... the rest of the world is going through this exact same experience." His initial trepidation turned to excitement as he began the writing process, thanks in large part to Emily Blunt, his wife and co-star, who saw what Krasinski was going for before he himself did.

"It was actually Emily, of course, who articulated it better than me," he said. "I pitched her my idea and she was like, 'So you're definitely doing that.' She said, 'But it's not a sequel. It's the second book in a series... It sounds [like] semantics but it's true, it really is — you're not doing anything that's like, alright I'm gonna take all the things you love and just kinda repeat them but in a different way.' It's not A Quieter Place, it's sort of an exploration of getting to live in the circumstances, and that's really fun."

This, of course, lends itself to all kinds of interpretation and speculation. A Quiet Place told a story relatively small in scale, tightly focused on the family at its center, which — considering its modest $17 million dollar budget — was as much a logistical choice as an aesthetic one. But the film smashed all expectations in grossing over $340 million dollars worldwide, meaning that the second installment will almost certainly be quite a bit more well-funded. 

Krasinski called the experience of penning the A Quiet Place "certainly the most fun [he's] ever had in my career as a writer... because [he] got to play in the most exciting world," but the goings-on in that larger world were only hinted at in the film. With these recent comments, Krasinski seems to be implying that he intends to expand the scope of the next story, perhaps giving us a larger cast of characters negotiating more complex situations. "Are there other people that have to survive like this?" he mused. "It's that idea of living through the set of circumstances, not again in the same way obviously, but exploring it more. You only got to do it intimately for a small amount of time, so what happens next?"

The scribe sidestepped the question of whether he would entertain the possibility of directing the next chapter, but it would surprise nobody if he were to end up sitting in that chair once again. His sure-handed direction of a tale with a near-absence of dialogue was certainly a factor in the first picture's success, and it's obvious that he's thoroughly invested in the story's continuation at this point. That Paramount will offer him the job is a given, and it doesn't seem like they'll have to pull out any more Jedi mind tricks to get him to consider it.

We'll find out what silent scares Krasinski is cooking up for us when the as-yet untitled A Quiet Place 2 hits theaters on May 15, 2020.