Having grossed a ridiculous $328 million on a production budget of just $17 million, and earned quite the endorsement from the Master of Horror himself, Stephen King, there isn’t much A Quiet Place didn’t achieve during its miraculous theatrical run – which culminated in the form of a sequel – earlier this year.
However, had the John Krasinski-directed, mostly silent film been pitched to the horror-centric production company Blumhouse, we likely would’ve gotten an entirely different experience, oddly enough.
Throughout the last year or so, Jason Blum – the man behind Ouija, The Purge, Insidious and Split; all of which turned massive profits on minimal budgets – has quietly garnered a sterling reputation at the box office. His crowning achievement, however, didn’t arrive until recently, when Jordan Peele’s enormously successful thriller Get Out pocketed four Academy Award nominations in the form of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay.
Although surprisingly, Blum, arguably the name in horror right now, doesn’t think he would have been able to make A Quiet Place – one of the more notably fright fests of late – work. During a sit-down with Variety, the producer revealed the reason behind his suspicion, explaining:
“I could not have pulled it off. I would have loved to produce the movie, but I don’t think we would have done it as well as they did it, because it’s a totally different space that we operate in. It’s a big movie.”
Seeing as the budgets of his tentpoles typically peak at around $5 million, with even the hotly-anticipated sequel to John Carpenter’s distinguished horror classic, Halloween, being made for a paltry $10 million, I suppose Blum’s apprehension is warranted. After all, A Quiet Place was working with nearly $20 million, and considering the film’s extensive creature effects, which Blum believes would’ve been the supposed collaboration’s downfall in the first place, there was probably no way a joint effort between the two would have ever panned out.
“The effects in that movie were spectacular. Effects in horror movies are almost impossible to do well, and that’s why you rarely see them in our movies. You get a good look at the monster, which is usually a real no-no in horror. It’s a no-no, because every time you get a look at it, it’s often much less scary than what you could have imagined. That’s not true in this movie, and that’s to their credit.”
It’s times like these where you can’t help but feel grateful that certain things didn’t work out. Had Blum sunk his claws into the masterful silent horror film, chances are we wouldn’t be getting A Quiet Place 2. Speaking of which, seeing as it’s in the early stages of development, everything is pretty non-committal right now, but should that change, we’ll be sure to let you know.
