New A Quiet Place Movie Loses Director

10/27/2021 04:52 pm EDT

Following the success of A Quiet Place Part II earlier this year Paramount Pictures moved quickly to make sure that the next entry in the franchise, a spinoff feature film set in the same universe, was already in the works. It had previously been reported that  Take Shelter and Midnight Special filmmaker Jeff Nichols would write and direct the new movie but that plan has now changed. According to a report from Deadline, Nichols and Paramount have "amicably" parted ways on him helming the film but he's moving over to work on an original sci-fi project for the studio which they are reportedly "very high on."

The trade goes on to report that new talent is already being sought out to fill the director's chair for the movie, which, again, will not be A Quiet Place Part III. Considering the tremendous box office success that A Quiet Place Part II brought in earlier this year, after being delayed multiple times due to COVID-19, the studio will almost certainly lock down a filmmaker for this very soon. The most recent entry in the series debuted in May of this year to $48.3 million at the domestic box office, nearly matching the opening and total box office of its predecessor, an impressive feat especially when factoring in diminished returns due to the ongoing pandemic and some audience reluctance to return to theaters.

Plot details about what this new A Quiet Place spinoff would have involved were never revealed but since it was never called "Part III" it stands to reason that it's being developed as just another movie set in this same universe and not a proper sequel. It was previously reported that filmmaker John Krasinski, who starred-in and directed the first two movies, came up with the story for the film.

There's also the possibility that Paramount wants to maintain the "Quiet Place" franchise place as a fan-favorite in theaters but must do an adjacent movie set in the same world while they wait for star Emily Blunt and her real-life husband Krasinski to become available for an eventual Part III. Blunt previously teased that Krasinski had plans for a third film.

"[Krasinski] has a whole arc of ideas that could work. I think he just wanted to see how people responded to this one before he fully engaged his brain on the third one. But he has a couple of great ideas," Blunt confessed to Collider.

The A Quiet Place spinoff movie already has a release date set, March 31, 2023, just over five years after the first film's debut, which it will seemingly keep assuming a new director is found shortly.

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