‘A Quiet Place’: John Krasinski Details How the Sequel Will Explore the Film’s World

After blowing away critics, audiences, and box office expectations earlier this year, John Krasinski is hard at work on the sequel to the horror hit A Quiet Place. But the movie is expected to make a major departure from the first film, as the writer and director has teased the direction he wants to take in the sequel.

Krasinski was initially reluctant to work on a followup to A Quiet Place, but after the idea began to germinate he couldn’t resist. He revealed more details about his plans for A Quiet Place 2, teasing that it would not follow the typical format that many audiences have come to expect from sequels.

“Why I had this little idea that’s now gotten bigger is most sequels are about a villain returning or a hero returning, and you have to build this entire world around just the idea that I have a hero or a villain,” Krasinski told Collider. “That’s a lot, and I think that’s where a lot of sequels go wrong because as much as you love that hero or villain, the entire thing is fabricated just to make that person work. [With A Quiet Place 2], we have the world.

“So it’s actually the world that’s built, it’s the idea that the rest of the world is going through this exact same experience. Are there other people that have to survive like this? 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?”

Krasinski has spoken at length about what he wants to accomplish with the followup to A Quiet Place, without spilling any details for plot points. After all, the first movie was a big surprise, and he wants to maintain that mystique for the sequel.

“I actually didn’t want anything to do with a sequel,” Krasinski previously said to Entertainment Weekly. “Not out of any negative aversion but that I thought we had sort of explored something really special and unique. And then I had this very small idea and what it was is that this is a world that you can play in. This isn’t just a character to remake, or a group of characters or a story, it’s actually a world. Which is a whole different, very unique experience.”

A Quiet Place 2 is scheduled to premiere in theaters on May 15, 2020.