Anna Daniels
During his Ellen Show interview, the former Office star touched on the fact that he had no plans to direct or star in a sequel to A Quiet Place, which grossed a whopping $340 million worldwide on a $17 million budget. In a subsequent chat with Entertainment Weekly, Krasinski explained why he was so disinterested in helming a second chapter and expanding the Quiet Place universe.
“I totally understood why the studio wanted to do a sequel for financial reasons,” he shared. “I didn’t want anything to do with it because, weirdly, as much as I’m the writer-director, I’m also a huge fan of this movie. I didn’t want to be a part of anything that would be viewed as a cash grab.”
After Krasinski turned down the opportunity to make a sequel to A Quiet Place, the film’s studio, Paramount Pictures, began to move forward on it without him. Krasinski told Business Insider, that A Quiet Place producer Drew Form even reached out to him for creative guidance on who might replace him and where the story might go. It was that nudge that helped persuade the actor-director to rethink his initial position.
“Drew was very smart and said, ‘Think on it some more while we have these meetings with other people,'” Krasinki said. “Then he threw the Jedi mind trick of asking me to just write the sequel, and he sucked me in.”
Krasinski doesn’t regret his decision to write and director another chapter of the A Quiet Place story yet, but he does hope fans will have the same change of heart he did: “Me going from not wanting to participate in a sequel to doing it is the same reason I hope people will want to see one. My hope is people want to revisit this world and revisit those stakes and those rules to have to abide by.”
A Quiet Place: Part II is set to open in theaters on March 20.
Written by: Looper
