Movies: Paramount "Quietly" Hoping for Hit With New Horror Pic

-The Wrap

As “Ready Player One” tries to build its solid start at the box office into long-term performance, two genre films will enter movie theaters hoping to carve out their own niche among theatergoers: Paramount’s silent horror film “A Quiet Place” and Universal’s raunchy teen comedy “Blockers.”

“A Quiet Place” has received rave reviews since its premiere at SXSW last month, currently holding a 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes with 49 reviews logged. That’s very good news for Paramount, a studio for which box office successes have become very sparse over the past year.

After a March marked by high-budget blockbusters struggling just to break even, “A Quiet Place” is a change of pace, as Paramount has taken an approach closer to the low-risk/high-reward formula that Universal and Blumhouse have perfected to great success. Directed by “The Office” star John Krasinski in his first project for a major studio, “A Quiet Place” has a budget of $17 million that it is expected to make back this weekend with an opening in the low $20 million range.

“A Quiet Place” is also hitting theaters at a time when audiences have come out in droves for quality horror films. From criticall- acclaimed titles like “Get Out” and “Split,” to record-breaking populist fare like “It,” 2017 was a year when moviegoers couldn’t get enough of a good scare. If the critics are any indication, Krasinski has created just that, and positive word of mouth could help turn this film into a much needed win for Paramount.

“A Quiet Place” stars Krasinski and his wife, Emily Blunt, as Lee and Evelyn Abbot, a married couple trying to protect their family from monsters who hunt humans and can track even the slightest noise. As a result, the family is forced to communicate through sign language, something that they had already done to communicate with their deaf daughter, Regan (“Wonderstuck” star Millicent Simmonds). Krasinski directed from a screenplay he co-wrote with Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, and is producing with Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller.