Lupita Nyong'o to Star in A Quiet Place Prequel 'Day One'
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever star Lupita Nyong'o is about to add another big franchise to her resume. It's being reported that Lupita is set to star in A Quiet Place: Day One, the prequel to Paramount and writer/director John Krasinski's highly successful A Quiet Place horror franchise. According to reports, Paramount tapped Nyong'o to lead the third A Quiet Place movie, and she is said to be in "final negotiations for the movie, which is being helmed by Michael Sarnoski (the acclaimed Nic Cage film Pig).
A Quiet Place: Day One is just one branch of the ever-expanding franchise; a fourth film that follows the events of A Quiet Place: Part Two, and will be third one directed by Krasinski, is also in development. Day One is set for release in 2024, with A Quiet Place 3 set for 2025. Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller are producing A Quiet Place: Day One through their Platinum Dunes imprint, with Krasinski's Sunday Night banner co-producing, and his producing partner Allyson Seeger acting as executive producer of the prequel.
With Black Panther 2 set to hit theaters in just a few weeks, fans will now certainly be looking at news of Lupita Nyong'o's casting in A Quiet Place a lot more conspicuously. Wakanda Forever has the massive shadow of late actor Chadwick Boseman handing over it; Boseman passed away from cancer in the fall of 2020, and this sequel movie will in part deal with his passing, both as a real-life person and the Marvel character King T'Challa, aka Black Panther. There's been a lot of fan theory and speculation (and inevitable leaks) about not only how but to whom the Black Panther mantle gets passed. Does this casting in the A Quiet Place franchise mean that Lupita Nyong'o is out of the running for that succession?
A Quiet Place (2018) made $341 million on a $17 million budget and won overwhelming critical acclaim. A Quiet Place Part II (2021) was the film that was about to open in theaters when the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the US in March 2020; the sequel was ultimately released in the Summer of 2021 and was credited with helping rekindle the post-pandemic box office, earning a respectable $297.4 million worldwide on a budget of $55-60 million. More importantly, A Quiet Place has been a successful content block on Paramount+ streaming, with great potential for wider expansion.
In fact, it's a possibility that Lupita Nyong'o's character's story from the prequel comes around to connect to A Quiet Place 3.
A Quiet Place: Day One has a release date of March 8, 2024. Lupita Nyong'o will next be seen in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever on November 11th.