If you’ve yet to make your way to the local multiplex and see John Krasinski’s outstanding directorial effort A Quiet Place, I quietly urge you to do so. The dramatic horror pic, which stars Krasinski’s real-life spouse Emily Blunt, is a devastating, intelligent, and downright scary piece of work.
Climbing atop the box office this weekend with a monstrous $50.2 million opening, A Quiet Place more than doubled its $17.2 million budget in just three days. As such, Krasinski has skyrocketed into the upper pantheon of rising talent and deservedly so. Not only that, but sequel talk is already underway.
Before that can happen, though, the post-mortem continues and now, in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Andrew Form of Platinum Dunes, the production company behind A Quiet Place, revealed that the film almost had a very different opening sequence.
For those who’ve seen it, you’ll know that it begins innocently enough, with Lee Abbott (John Krasinski), wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt), and kids Reagan (Millicent Simmonds), Marcus (Noah Jupe) and Beau (Cade Woodward) out scrounging around for supplies when Beau finds a toy space shuttle. Lee immediately takes the hunk of plastic away, signing that it’s too loud and will attract the monsters.
Beau’s older sister Reagan retrieves the toy for him but is sure to remove the batteries. Unbeknownst to her, Beau eventually recovers them, and on the walk home, activates the toy and is killed by one of the hideous creatures that hunt and kill by sound.
According to Form, this death was originally revealed through flashbacks.
“Initially, there were flashbacks where the characters talked. Also, the sibling’s death was handled in a flashback. John was adamant that we get rid of it, making it present day and kept the urgency of the storytelling.”
The producer also disclosed that the original script Dunes received from co-writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods was only 67-pages long and included drawings and a map. Furthermore, he touched on why Krasinski was the right man for the job.
“Once he started talking about the material, we saw that his insights were really smart and we were inspired. Our company was founded by Michael Bay after Jerry Bruckheimer gave him his first opportunity. So in essence, our company was founded on supporting first- and second-time filmmakers. We give them a level of protection that they might not otherwise have. You could ask John any question about an object on set. ‘Why is that chair there?’ He would instantly have a detailed answer as to how it related to the Abbot family and why it was there. You couldn’t stump him.”
We’re certainly glad that Form and his partners decided to give Krasinski a chance, as he was most definitely the right choice. Whether he’ll return for the inevitable sequel to A Quiet Place remains to be seen, but if one thing’s for certain, it’s that he’s delivered one of the genre’s best efforts in some time. One that’ll no doubt go down as one of 2018’s finest horror pics.
