A Quiet Place’s New Cillian Murphy Replacements Confirm How Genius The Sequel’s $300 Million Risk Was

As A Quiet Place: Day One takes the horror franchise back to the fateful apocalyptic day, the prequel’s substitutes for Cillian Murphy’s A Quiet Place 2 introduction highlight how the gamble of his casting truly paid off. Directed by and starring John Krasinski, the 2018 A Quiet Place movie was a massive hit for the former The Office actor, as the critically acclaimed horror film earned over $340 million at the box office against a modest $17 million budget (via Box Office Mojo). However, with A Quiet Place’s ending seeing the death of Krasinski’s Lee Abbott, the 2020 sequel was tasked with the risky mission of finding a worthy replacement character.

With Lee gone and their home no longer safe, the Abbotts quickly set off to find new shelter in A Quiet Place 2, leading them to reunite with the family’s old friend Emmett, played by Cillian Murphy. While finding someone to take Krasinski’s place in the franchise was a difficult task, A Quiet Place 2’s risk paid off with Murphy, who brought the quiet mystery, horror chops, and chemistry with the returning cast that such a role required. Now, as A Quiet Place: Day One brings the story back to the day the monsters landed, the prequel is replicating the $297 million-earning sequel’s casting success.

A Quiet Place: Day One’s New Actors Are Doubling Down On What Made Cillian Murphy The Perfect John Krasinski Replacement

Coming in to help lead a franchise in a later installment isn’t an easy task to take on, but Cillian Murphy’s horror background helped make him the perfect actor for the job. The same is now true for Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn, who are at the forefront of A Quiet Place: Day One’s story. Unlike Murphy, however, Nyong’o and Quinn aren’t being introduced alongside major returning characters from previous franchise installments. Though Djimon Hounsou is reprising his role from A Quiet Place 2 in the prequel, his character was only briefly involved in the sequel’s horror story.

Nyong’o and Quinn leading A Quiet Place: Day One is thus an even bigger gamble than Cillian Murphy replacing John Krasinski as the main series’ male lead. However, Nyong’o and Quinn’s casting brings many of the same qualities that proved to make Murphy’s A Quiet Place 2 role so compelling. Both actors have previously starred in major horror projects, with Nyong’o shining in Jordan Peele’s Us and Quinn having one of the greatest character arcs of the entire show in Stranger Things season 4. Of course, the cast of A Quiet Place: Day One is also supported by genre veterans like Hereditary’s Alex Wolff and American Horror Story’s Denis O’Hare.

With Cillian Murphy having risen to fame through his role in the movie 28 Days Later, the franchise continues finding worthy new leads who have already proven their skills in the horror and sci-fi genres. Similar to Murphy in 28 Days Later, N’yongo gave a similarly quiet but gradually more intensive performance in Jordan Peele’s Us, which seems to be the perfect approach to a franchise like A Quiet Place. While Emily Blunt had starred in a few horror movies before A Quiet Place, the original film’s cast was mostly new to the genre. But, with each new installment, the stars’ horror expertise grows.

A Quiet Place Prequel’s Horror Actors Hint The Spinoff Will Be Far Scarier Than The Original Movies

With so many horror actors making up the cast of A Quiet Place: Day One, the Michael Sarnoski-directed prequel is shaping up to be even scarier than the franchise’s first two outings. Nyong’o gave one of the most chilling horror performances in recent years with Us, Alex Wolff had an incredibly shocking role in the indie horror Hereditary, and Joseph Quinn already battled Stranger Things’ scariest monsters yet in the Netflix show’s 2022 season. Furthermore, it’s expected that the prequel has a bigger budget than the previous two movies, which may help increase the gruesome, terrifying details of A Quiet Place’s monsters.

Though Beau’s fate in A Quiet Placerevealed right off the bat that the movie wasn’t afraid to kill off young characters, the stakes seemed somewhat lower than in subsequent outings as the story was primarily contained to four characters: Lee, Evelyn, Regan, and Marcus. A Quiet Place 2 then upped the ante as Cillian Murphy came in to replace Krasinski, the Abbotts had a new baby to protect and keep quiet, Scoot McNairy and the marina people became an obstacle, and Djimon Hounsou and the island community were introduced. However, A Quiet Place: Day One’s setting, casting, and differences tease a much scarier entry.

Based on A Quiet Place: Day One’s first trailer, one of the biggest differences between the main series and the prequel spinoff is the absence of children in the latter. With fewer children in lead roles, it’s likely that A Quiet Place’s 2024 franchise outing will be more ruthless with its characters and their fates. Additionally, with A Quiet Place: Day One being set in New York City, the sheer chaos, dense population, city-based noise, and claustrophobia are bound to make for a more terrifying experience.

A Quiet Place: Day One Can Still Repeat The Sequel’s John Krasinski Trick With Cillian Murphy

Since Cillian Murphy’s character is still alive after A Quiet Place 2’s ending, it’s expected that he’ll return alongside Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe for A Quiet Place 3‘s teased story. However, he could potentially make a surprise cameo in A Quiet Place: Day One’s prequel narrative. So far, the only confirmed returning actor in A Quiet Place: Day One is Djimon Hounsou, but the franchise still has the opportunity to bring back other faces by pulling a similar trick to A Quiet Place 2’s opening scene.

The sequel opened with a flashback sequence that took the Abbott family’s story back to the day that the aliens crashed on Earth, later returning to A Quiet Place‘s present-day timeline on Day 474. Consequently, the sequel was able to bring back John Krasinski for the cold open by briefly taking the story back a year. Day One has the opportunity to pull a similar trick with Cillian Murphy, as the prequel could potentially conclude with a flash-forward to Emmett on the island with Hounsou’s unnamed A Quiet Place character. If Murphy returned for such a cameo in A Quiet Place: Day One, his status as Krasinski’s on-screen franchise replacement would be further cemented.

Source: Box Office Mojo

A Quiet Place: Day One

A Quiet Place: Day One is a spin-off of the A Quiet Place franchise conceived by John Krasinski. The film is set at the beginning of the invasion as humanity scrambles to survive, before the events of the original film, with Lupita Nyong’O leading the cast, directed by Michael Sarnoski.

Director

Michael Sarnoski

Release Date

June 28, 2024

Distributor(s)

Paramount Pictures

Writers

Michael Sarnoski