Invading aliens transform a bustling New York City into a silent wasteland in the latest trailer for A Quiet Place: Day One, a prequel to the first two films in the hugely successful horror franchise.
(Mild spoilers for A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place: Part II below.)
As reported previously, the original film began in medias res over a month after an alien invasion set in early 2020. Sightless extraterrestrial creatures wiped out most of the humans and animals on Earth. They hunt by sound thanks to their hypersensitive hearing and are difficult to kill because they sport tough armored skin. The film centered on the Abbott family, struggling to survive a few months after the initial invasion. Dad Lee (John Krasinski) was an engineer focused on keeping his family alive each day. Wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt) was a doctor, pregnant with their fourth child.
Krasinski originally intended A Quiet Place to be a one-off standalone film, but it was a critical and box office hit, ultimately grossing $340 million globally against its modest $17 million budget. So naturally, there was a sequel featuring the surviving family members as they processed their loss and encountered other survivors.
Written and directed by Michael Sarnoski, Day One is designed to be a standalone spinoff set in the same universe but following a different cast of characters, although Djimon Hounsou reprises his Part II role as the Man on the Island, whose name turns out to be Henri. There isn't a longer official synopsis, just a single logline: “Experience the day the world went quiet.” Lupita Nyong'o stars as Sam, while Joseph Quinn—who stole our hearts as Eddie Munson in Stranger Things S4—plays Eric, a clean-shaven young businessman. The cast also includes Alex Wolff and Denis O'Hare in as-yet-undisclosed roles.
The first trailer dropped in February and opened by briefly reminding us of what came before: the Abbott family on Day 471, before tragedy struck, followed by the survivors on Day 477, including a brief glimpse of Cillian Murphy's Emmett from Part II. Then the clock wound back to Day 1 as Sam walked down the streets of Manhattan holding her cat. Naturally, all hell broke loose as the creatures crashed to Earth and promptly began devouring any readily available humans.