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‘A Quiet Place’ Screenwriters Are Hopeful For a Sequel

With the horror movie dominating the box office, talks of a new franchise are already well on their way.
A Quiet Place
By  · Published on April 9th, 2018

With the horror movie dominating the box office, talks of a new franchise are already well on their way.

This past weekend, A Quiet Place howled at the box office (a silly pun, but one impossible for film bloggers to resist). Clearing $50 million, you can bet that Paramount executives are already plotting how to transform John Krasinski‘s intimate tale of terror into an ever-expanding franchise contender. Are you ready for the Abbott family to hit the road in a Jaws-like hunt that similarly obsessed the Brody clan for three unnecessary sequels? A Quiet Place: The Revenge has a nice ring to it.

As reported by Fandango, the screenwriters of A Quiet Place are certainly not opposed to the idea. Bryan Woods spoke at a press conference, suggesting that there is a lot of space for these monsters to explore:

“It’s such a fun world. There are so many things you could do.”

Without delving too deep into spoilers, A Quiet Place does not conclude with an easy fix.  This is not The Phantom Menace; there is no off-switch for the maurading droid army. The brilliance of the film is the family snapshot it provides. Using sound sensitive creatures to amplify the horrors of parenting. You can round off all the edges in your house, you can child-lock all the cupboard doors, but it is impossible to think of every safety precaution. Fangs and claws will snap hold eventually.

Co-writer Scott Beck expounds even further. Spending possibly too many hours contemplating the horrors of these creatures, the team created a laundry list of grotesque action set pieces:

“There are so many discarded set pieces, too, just hiding out in Word documents on our computers. So, yeah, there are certainly so many stories you could tell. It’s just really, at the end of the day, who are the characters in this, and what does this situation mean to that dynamic?”

I understand their urge to explore their mythology. A Quiet Place offers one of the most satisfying monster mashes in recent memory. This is a film that works as a creature feature and a terrifying metaphor. Here is a rare bird we want to nurture, love, and see grow into a proud condor. The fear is that studio execs may stuff this baby into the factory farming machine, cranking out A Quiet Place chicken nuggets instead of the blissful free ranging chick it deserves to be.

The film did not scream sequel to me when the lights went up. A Quiet Place is a satisfying gut punch of a movie. You leave the theater feeling like you went through the horror yourself. What Krasinski has crafted packs as much nervous energy as a close-call collision on the freeway. The film is an experience, and one I would imagine to be difficult to replicate.

Woods and Beck can easily whip something together to further the horrors of the world, but can they replicate the nightmare of the first film? Perhaps the trick is looking to the Alien franchise, in particular James Cameron’s jump into action extravaganza from Ridley Scott’s haunted horror story. Sequels are part of the game. What makes money must make more money. The key is discovering progression rather than repetition.

Spoilers Below

Does A Quiet Place 2 begin the moment the first film concludes? Possibly. Emily Blunt’s Mama Abbott could cock her shotgun and charge out of the basement to confront the remaining two beasties. With the aid of Millicent Simmonds‘ amplified hearing aid, mother and daughter can easily clear the area from the angels of death.

Of course, Blunt tends not to return for sequels. She’s nowhere to be found in Sicario: Day of the Soldado, and it’s doubtful that she’ll be back for Edge of Tomorrow 2, if that actually ever gets off the ground. I don’t really want to see The Abbotts fall into the same trap that The Brodys did in the Jaws series. They deserve some rest from the fight.

What is happening across the rest of the planet? Regarding Bryan Woods’s words about the “fun world” to explore, I’d like to see A Quiet Place 2 cross a little more territory than the family farm house. If we’re forced to continue this story, let’s leave The Abbotts alone, and check in on their neighbors.

We may not have Space Marines at our disposal, but there is definitely a straggling military presence out there in the apocalypse. A Quiet Place 2 will have the budget to boost the cast and the set pieces. I want to see tanks and jets and bazookas — oh my! We need to meet the Hickses and Hudsons of this world. Maybe even a Burke or two. What does A Quiet Place‘s version of the Alien Queen look like?

Whatever the sequel amounts to, The Abbotts story has been told. Their metaphorical combat has wrapped up. It’s time to find a new, real-world fright to dissect. We’ve got plenty of other horrors to dive into.

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Brad Gullickson is a Weekly Columnist for Film School Rejects and Senior Curator for One Perfect Shot. When not rambling about movies here, he's rambling about comics as the co-host of Comic Book Couples Counseling. Hunt him down on Twitter: @MouthDork. (He/Him)