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E-mail China.org.cn, June 30, 2024
Michael Sarnoski, the director of "A Quiet Place: Day One," told China.org.cn that the new prequel in the franchise is "very exciting and interesting," with a story that unfolds on a global scale and features terrifying alien monsters.
A Chinese poster for "A Quiet Place: Day One." [Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures]
The apocalyptic horror film, the third installment in the "A Quiet Place" series, is written and directed by Sarnoski based on a story he conceived with John Krasinski, the original film's creator. Serving as a spin-off and prequel to the first movie, "A Quiet Place: Day One" stars Lupita Nyong'o, Joseph Quinn and Alex Wolff.
The film follows a terminally ill woman as she navigates the early stages of an invasion in New York City by blind extraterrestrial creatures with an acute sense of hearing. Like its predecessors, the film offers a unique and immersive silent horror experience for viewers.
Sarnoski said that the idea for the prequel originated from a moment in "A Quiet Place Part II" when a character talks about "day one" of the alien invasion. He and Krasinski wanted to explore that story further, particularly in a noisy urban setting as opposed to the quiet rural environment of the previous films. Krasinski, who had seen Sarnoski's 2021 film "Pig," wanted the director to bring some of that film's sensibility to the "A Quiet Place" universe.
"But at its core, the 'A Quiet Place' films tend to be really dramatically driven character stories. The first movie was very much a family drama. I liked the idea of having the opportunity to do a really intimate drama in the context of a large apocalyptic invasion movie," he said.
The director also discussed some of the challenges in creating the movie, such as working with cats, as the film features a feline character. Eliciting an authentic and realistic performance from the cat proved quite tricky, he said. Another challenge was capturing a believable sense of New York and designing the setting to feel like a version of the city that people haven't seen before.
"It's set after this destruction has happened, but you still feel like you're journeying through a place that has a real sense of presence and history. We spent a lot of time really figuring that out," he said.
Set in a world where making any sound attracts deadly alien monsters with acute hearing, the film features minimal dialogue, forcing the characters to navigate their surroundings in near-complete silence.
"For actors, it's probably harder but different. One of the most exciting aspects of the 'A Quiet Place' series is watching these characters navigate without sound. I think the actors did an incredible job conveying so much just through their eyes and expressions. Here, we just couldn't use the tool of dialogue as much. We had to lean on other tools, which was really fun to see them explore," Sarnoski said.
But he added, "So it was a challenge, but it was also a very exciting challenge."
"A Quiet Place: Day One" hit Chinese theaters on June 28. The franchise's previous two installments performed well in China for the horror genre, with the first film grossing 220 million yuan ($30 million) in 2018 and the second earning 250 million yuan in 2021.
