A Quiet Place 2 Gets an Earlier Release Date

Paramount has shifted the John Krasinski-directed horror A Quiet Place 2 up from its previously announced May 15, 2020 date to March 20, 2020, Deadline reports. That date puts the sequel closer in step with the first film, which opened to $50 million in early April 2018 before going on to gross $340 million worldwide.

A Quiet Place 2 would have opened against Warner Bros.' animated Scoob. Its original mid-May 2020 spot was just one week ahead of Universal's untitled Fast and Furious 9 and Paramount's own The SpongeBob Movie: It's a Wonderful Sponge.

In its new release date, A Quiet Place 2 takes the place of Playing with Fire, a family film starring John Cena (Bumblebee), Brianna Hildebrand (Deadpool 2), Judy Greer (Ant-Man), John Leguizamo (John Wick: Chapter 2) and Keegan-Michael Key (Toy Story 4). That film was bumped up to the November 8 slot originally claimed by Paramount's live-acton Sonic the Hedgehog, pushed back on Friday to February 14, 2020, to improve the highly criticized appearance of its titular animated character.

Now the horror sequel, again starring Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe alongside series newcomer Cillian Murphy, opens one week after Warner Bros. and Legendary's Godzilla vs. Kong and Universal and Blumhouse's The Invisible Man. One week later, Quiet Place will contend with Disney's live-action Mulan and Paramount's own G.I. Joe: Snake Eyes.

Krasinski again writes and directs the sequel, which originated from a "small idea" Krasinski had to continue the original film originally envisioned as a one-off.

"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 once 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."

That world is an apocalyptic landscape patrolled by blind, extraterrestrial creatures who hunt their human prey by sound.

"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," Krasinski said. "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?"

A Quiet Place 2 now opens March 20, 2020.