A Quiet Place: Day One is the upcoming spin-off of the A Quiet Place franchise. While A Quiet Place III may be further away than expected — having been pushed back from its original 2025 release date — fans can look forward to the prequel’s release on June 28, 2024. Paramount’s latest trailer release showcases a star-studded cast and the potential for some great action scenes. Regarding backstory, the trailer is fairly vague, but that only increases the anticipation surrounding this summer’s release. 

The Cast

The trailer starts with scenes from the first and second movies. We see the familiar Abbott family sitting around the table and a shot of Emmett (Cillian Murphy) running. Since this is a prequel, these familiar faces aren’t likely to appear. That is, other than Djimon Hounsou, who will return to the franchise after his A Quiet Place II role. The countdown on the screen quickly makes its way back to the pivotal “day one,” and we get a first look at the movie’s real main character, Sam.

Sam, played by Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, is taking a day trip to New York City on the day the aliens take over. Nyong’o’s performance is one to look forward to. From the trailer, there will be plenty of action and emotion-packed scenes that will highlight the actress’s performance.

Nyong’o is not the only well-known actor starring in the film. Joseph Quinn, known for his role as Eddie Munson on Stranger Things season four, plays Eric, a man who teams up with Sam to survive in their disrupted world. With these two playing the lead roles, the film’s performances should be solid. Other notable names involved in the project are Alex Wolff and Jennifer Woodward, though they don’t make appearances in the trailer.   

What’s New

The first noticeable deviation from the original movies is the setting. The first two movies occur largely in rural areas like the Abbott family’s farm. In the prequel trailer, we’re thrown immediately into a bustling New York City. This will pose unique challenges. The alien creatures at the core of the story have hyper-sensitive hearing, which is both a strength and a weakness. Adjusting to a life of silence will be very different in a big city like NYC, where noise is essentially the soundtrack to life. Not only this, but the typically busy pace of the city will only raise the stakes when everything is suddenly ground to a halt. 

Another new twist to this storyline is the character dynamics. The prequel’s main characters, Sam and Eric, are forced together as strangers. The Abbott family met other characters throughout the first two movies, but a familial connection always drove their actions and the stakes. In Day One, there is a chance to explore how the characters navigate this world as individuals and how they choose to build — or not build — relationships with those they come into contact with.  

Unanswered Questions

As mentioned previously, the trailer does look action-packed. Quick shots show the creatures chasing Sam and Eric through the streets, buildings collapsing, catching fire, and more. However, the trailer doesn’t give many clues regarding how it will address questions of the aliens’ full origin or their further weaknesses. 

John Krasinski revealed some aspects of the creatures’ backstory in the past. They are aliens that came to Earth after the destruction of their home planet. The first two movies also uncovered some of their weaknesses, particularly their weakness to high-frequency sounds. How these new characters will discover this is unclear. It is also unclear if the monsters will have any other unrevealed abilities or weaknesses. 

It will be interesting to see how the characters in this timeline choose to communicate without sound. The Abbott family knew and used ASL with their daughter, Regan, before the aliens arrived. Though not making any sound was still a challenge for the whole family, they at least had a way to communicate other than writing. It doesn’t look like any of the characters in the prequel are deaf or use a signed language, so they may struggle even more to communicate without alerting the creatures to their presence. 

Overall, the A Quiet Place: Day One trailer looks promising. The cast is one to look forward to, and some great-looking shots are throughout. Where the creators will take the storyline is yet to be fully known, but hopefully, it will make some intriguing expansions to the franchise’s world.