Welcome back to Deep Focus. In this week’s episode, host Rodrigo Perez, also editor-in-chief of The Playlist, talks to Michael Sarnoski, the author and director of “A quiet place: day one”, which is now available to rent or purchase digitally from Superior home entertainment. The film will also be released on Paramount+ on August 27th.
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Like her probably know, Sarnoski started his career with the quiet and tender indiePig”, with a wonderfully nuanced performance by Nicholas CageFor his “A quiet place” Spinoff prequel, if John Krasinski, The writer and director of the previous two installments in the series called Sarnoski to pitch the project, wondering if the filmmaker wanted to add the “Pig” touch to the franchise.
Sarnoski went away, thought about it a bit, and came up with his interpretation of the film, something epic on a scale set in New York, but in many ways deeply human, character-driven, while also subverting many blockbuster cliches. And when Krasinski said he wanted some of that “Pig” touch, well, he got just that and maybe more.
As you may already know, “Day One” is a flashback to the first day of the invasion of deadly creatures that hunt by sound in one of the noisiest places on Earth: New York City. Lupita Nyong’o And Joseph Quinn deliver emotionally devastating and gripping portrayals of strangers embarking on a harrowing journey through the eerily quiet streets of Manhattan just to grab a slice of pizza (read our review).
Saronski said when he pitched his proposal to Krasinski, he acknowledged it might be unusual, but the “A Quiet Place” director was all for it. “I think my pitch was, I’m not exaggerating, 30 seconds long and I didn’t have a detailed story,” he explained. “It was just like, ‘I want to follow a hospice patient who just wants to eat pizza; that’s the essence of what I could do,’ and I literally said beforehand, ‘I don’t know if that’s the most marketable version,’ but his response was, in not too many words, ‘Sure, let’s do it.'”
Sarnoski and Krasinski brought the film to Paramount, and he knew he firmly anchored elements such as New York as a setting and thus connected with Djimon Hounsous Characters in “A quiet place part II”, but he decided not to Do not make any of the connections visible.
“I just wanted to use it as a kind of reference point,” he explained of his intention to tie things into ‘Part II.’ “That was the original idea they presented: ‘Djimon Hounsou’s character in Part II talks about the first day in New York City and he tells his particular story about what it was like there… so that’s somewhere in the back of our minds, but I didn’t want to do the story. There’s a version of this movie where you could say, ‘OK, let’s tell this story.’ And in some ways it’s very tempting because Djimon is an incredible actor… but you kind of already know what that’s going to be; he explained it… but I wanted to use it more as something that happens in the background.”
Sarnoski’s approach was actually to deviate as much as possible from the previous films and make his film unique. He even went so far as to make it not a survival film, but a film about a dying character who had already accepted their fate. So if Krasinski’s A Quiet Place films were essentially about how far you would go to protect your loved ones, Sarnoski’s approach eventually became more about how far you would go to protect complete strangers. This was reminiscent of 9/11 and how New Yorkers really supported each other and everyone in the city brought out the best in them, and Sarnoski admitted that 9/11 was something he couldn’t get out of his mind.
“It’s not impossible, but I couldn’t make a film like this without 9/11 being mentioned somewhere,” he said. “I don’t think you can make a New York disaster film without that being mentioned somewhere.”
Sarnoski even spoke with Jeff Nichols, the original writer and director of “A Quiet Place: Day One,” who ultimately left the project and said he would fully support him in developing the project in any direction.
“I read his version – and I think Jeff Nichols is extremely talented, an incredible writer and director – so I read his script, I talked to him, he called me very supportively and kindly and said, ‘Hey, this is yours. I’ve taken it as far as I wanted to; I’m good; you’ve got it.’ And I really appreciated that, but for myself, it was kind of starting over again and I said, ‘OK, there’s a lot of stuff in this script that’s great, for my own sanity and my own focus, I just need to pretend that doesn’t exist and start from scratch, which was really helpful. It was really kind of him – he wasn’t protective or upset or anything like that, he said, ‘Have fun with it and make it your own.'”
Next up for Sarnoski is “The Death of Robin Hood,” about which he spoke at length and said he hopedIt would be a bridge between his first film, “Pig,” and his latest film, “A Day One.”
“I’m doing ‘The Death of Robin Hood’ with Hugh Jackman And Jodie Comer. And this is a script I wrote just before ‘Quiet Place.’ That was kind of a deal I made with myself,” he explained. “I thought, ‘If I’m going to do a big studio movie, I want to have a smaller movie that’s all mine and that I can work on in the background.’ So we pieced that together as we worked on it and I’m really excited about it. ‘Pig’ was a very small movie, ‘Quiet Place’ was a very big movie and ‘Death Of Robin Hood’ is right in between, so it’s going to be fun to use what I’ve learned on both sides and – it’s only my third movie so I’ve got a lot to learn but hopefully I can take the best of both worlds and make something that I really love. I think Hugh is going to be incredible in it and Jodie is fantastic.”
Sarnoski also said that the idea, like all of his previous films, scared him a little, which is a good sign.
“I like films where you start off by asking yourself, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? ‘Are you sure you want to make a film about a dying person getting pizza?’ ‘Are you sure you want to make a film about a guy looking for his truffle pig?'” he recalls thinking. “And Robin Hood films have a kind of tradition of thinking, ‘I don’t know, maybe we should take a break from Robin Hood films,’ and so it was kind of a challenge to myself, along the lines of, ‘Can I write a version of a Robin Hood film that I have and when you do that, you almost want to fail, like, “Oh, thank God, I was right, it was a bad idea, I shouldn’t have made Robin Hood,” but I wrote this version, and I thought, “Oh no, I have to make this film. This is the version of the story that I need So, unfortunately, I think it’s going to be really good and I’m really excited about it (laughs).”
When asked if he was considering making another Quiet Place movie or if he would stay on as an executive producer to contribute ideas, he essentially answered the first question, “Not really; but you never know,” and the second, “If they wanted my input, sure.”
“I’ve heard a few things about it (where the idea for the next spin-off might go), but I’ve tried very hard to focus as much on a standalone film,” he explained. “You can watch this without knowing anything about the other Quiet Place films. So I see this as something that can stand on its own two feet, it’s not an attempt to set up a sequel, you don’t need the other films to appreciate these characters. And of course I’d love to put my two cents in something, but I don’t think I’d do another Quiet Place unless I could find something similar, like, ‘This is a character Story to follow, but fortunately I think the world of Quiet Place lends itself to these kinds of stories because it forces you to get involved with these characters and be quiet and tense… but I would have to find something where it’s like, ‘I’ve never seen this character in this kind of movie before.'”
A Quiet Place: Day One is now available to rent or purchase digitally. A three-film collection, including A Quiet Place, A Quiet Place: Part II, and A Quiet Place: Day One, is also now available digitally. The film will also be released on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD, and a collectible 4K Ultra HD SteelBook on October 8.
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