In 2018, a small horror movie about a family trying to survive in a world infested by sound-sensitive aliens became a critical and box office smash hit, and we've been delighted to witness the reverberations of it ever since. Writer/director John Krasinski's A Quiet Place made a huge impact when it landed in theaters, and we've not only seen an original horror boom explode in the years since then, but also the birth of an exciting new franchise. Krasinski followed up the blockbuster in 2021 with a direct sequel, A Quiet Place Part II, and now there is a special prequel on the way titled A Quiet Place: Day One.
Sadly, we are still about a year from seeing the completed film, as Paramount Pictures has plans to release it in March 2024, but today we got a very special early look at the horror film thanks to exclusive footage that debuted at CinemaCon 2023.
The annual Las Vegas convention for theater owners has been underway since Monday, with studios providing attendees with special looks at their respective upcoming slates, and Paramount provided a special preview of A Quiet Place: Day One during its presentation earlier this morning. The prequel only wrapped principal photography a couple weeks ago, so we didn't exactly get to see an extensive look at the film (unlike Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1, which showed off a full 20-minute action scene), but the audience in The Colosseum at Caesars Palace did all the same get an exciting and terrifying look at the movie.
The A Quiet Place: Day One footage began with a look at what appears to be a normal day in the heart of New York City. Lupita Nyong'o's character sleeps on a bus with a cat lying on her lap, and suddenly her eyes open in shock when the vehicle comes to a stop. As the camera pulls out and she looks behind her, she sees that the bus has been cut in half somehow. People are standing around in the streets looking up, and the reason why is revealed as the camera tilts. There are what look like hundreds of asteroids streaking through the sky (what we know is actually an alien invasion), and the moment is interrupted by a big boom as one of the extraterrestrials crashes to the ground.
Lupita Nyong'o is knocked out and covered in dust, and as she wakes up and walks around terrified, she is grabbed by a stranger and shushed. In a montage, there is chaos in the subway, cars exploding, and panic in the streets of New York. At the end of the preview, the protagonist is hiding under a car and breathing hard but quietly, and the peace is broken when a man tries to get under the same car and starts pulling at her legs. However, at the same time, the man also gets pulled away by something unseen, and the footage ended with what looked like the car collapsing down on her.
In addition to Lupita Nyong'o, who signed on for the film last November, A Quiet Place: Day One also stars Stranger Things Season 4 star Joseph Quinn and Alex Wolff – who continues to add to his filmography in the horror genre after starring in both Ari Aster's Hereditary and M. Night Shyamalan's Old. Michael Sarnoski, who earned tremendous acclaim for his 2021 drama Pig starring Nicolas Cage, is directing the prequel as his first feature for a major studio.
Fans will remember that we first got a preview of the events of "Day One" in A Quiet Place: Part II, which opens with the Abbott family (John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Dean Woodward) witnessing the arrival of the aliens while watching a Little League baseball game. That was just the prologue for the sequel, however, which is mostly set a year into the decimation of the human race. A Quiet Place: Day One won't be cutting away from the terror of the invasion, and obviously a special extra layer is added to the insanity by having the story be set in one of the noisiest places on Earth.
Paramount Pictures is also presently planning A Quiet Place Part III, which is on track to come out sometime in 2025, but A Quiet Place: Day One will be hitting theaters in about 11 months – specifically on March 8, 2024. Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for the latest news and updates about the film (hopefully it won't be too long until the first publicly released trailer is dropped online), and be on the look out for more of our reporting from on the ground at CinemaCon. To see what other scary films are on the way in the coming months, head over to our Upcoming Horror Movies guide.
