Lupita Nyong’o attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood, California. Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images.
He has been a part of the ‘Star Wars’ sequel. Starred in more than one Marvel movie. And thanks to ‘Queen of Katwe’ and ‘The Jungle Book’ by Jon Favreau, Lupita Nyong’o can claim full Disney move status to boot.
So is there another franchise world for him to conquer? Lots, it turns out – and he started with Paramount’s ‘A Quiet Place’.
More specifically, the actor has been cast in a spin-off of the John Krasinski-supervised sci-fi film series called ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’.
You’ll remember that the films started life with ‘A Quiet Place’ in 2018, after writers Bryan Woods and Scott Beck came up with the idea of an invading alien species coming from the stars. The voracious creatures are blind, but are blessed with extraordinarily high hearing, and are driven to attack humans who make sounds.
Krasinski provided the script and then agreed to direct, co-starring with wife Emily Blunt and young actors Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe, playing a family dealing with the aftermath of an invasion and the arrival of a newborn baby.
The film was a huge success and was followed by ‘A Quiet Place: Part II’ in 2020, which focused on the characters Blunt, Simmonds and Jupe after the tragic first film. Krasinski returns to write and direct and appears as the ill-fated (spoiler alert) character in the prologue set on the first day of alien arrival.
And that has prompted the creation of this spin-off film, which will take place in the same world but follow different characters.
(left) Noah Jupe and director John Krasinski and on the set of Paramount Pictures’ “A Quiet Place Part II”.
As Krasinski was busy with other projects (he was directing a fantasy film called ‘Imaginary Friends’, in which he appeared alongside Ryan Reynolds and Steve Carell), the task of directing ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ was shifted to another director.
Initially, it was ‘Midnight Special’ and ‘Mud’s Jeff Nichols, but one of the films itself pulled him away from the spinoff.
A replacement was found in ‘Pig’ director Michael Sarnoski, working from a script by Krasinski and Nichols.
Little is known about the new film outside of its setting and the idea that it will tell the story of people trying to survive in a new post-apocalyptic world outside of their original families. It seemed unlikely that Blunt’s Evelyn Abbott would appear.
But we can look forward to his return in the third main film ‘A Quiet Place’, which isn’t expected until 2025 (not surprising given Krasinski’s schedule). Paramount hopes to continue building on the film, with the possibility of more spinoffs if ‘Day One’ succeeds.
Nyong’o will return to our screens as Nakia in the Marvel sequel ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’, which will be released on Friday, November 11.
Meanwhile, ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ is scheduled to hit theaters on March 8, 2024.
(left to right) John Krasinski as Lee Abbott, and Noah Jupe as Marcus Abbott in ‘A Quiet Place.’
