A Quiet Place: Day One just achieved a major milestone at the box office. Led by Lupita Nyong’o, rather than previous stars John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, the movie follows Nyong’o’s terminally ill Sam as she desperately tries to survive the invasion at the beginning of the Quiet Place timeline. The movie has enjoyed immense success at the box office, having earned $52.2 million in its opening weekend alone, which is nearly its entire $67 million budget.
In its fourth week at the box office, Deadline reports that Day One crossed another major milestone after taking the fifth spot in the weekend box office. With an estimated $5.9 million domestic total this weekend, the prequel has earned a total of $127.4 million in the domestic market. It has crossed the vaunted $125 million total and is just $7 million away from doubling its budget among domestic audiences alone.
Despite having a stronger start than the rest of the franchise, A Quiet Place: Day One’s box office take has slowed in the weeks since its opening. It debuted to a massive $53 million, which was $5.5 million more than Part II and approximately $3 million more than the 2018 movie. Since then, however, Day One has proven to lack the longevity of other franchise entries, with its slowing domestic total potentially not matching the previous two movies. It is currently $33 million behind Part II and $61 million behind the original.
Its success is interesting as it doesn’t appear to have suffered as a result of prequel fatigue, unlike, say, Furiosa, depsite being noticeably weaker than the first two movies.
The problem with Furiosa on that front is that so many of the cast appear in Fury Road that there is little jeopardy, as you can tell if a character lives of dies as soon as they appear and thr script did nothing to subvert that. Equally the setting was pretty much the same as Fury Road, just bringing in some locations that were mentioned and not seen.
Meanwhile, AQP:D1 has mostly new characters in an urban setting and, as it is the start of the invasion it gives proceedings a different dynamic as everyone is trying to figure out the “rules”. So it is familiar enough to appeal to fans of the original two films, while being original enough to be a story worth telling.
I think the main issue with sequel/prequel/franchise fatigue is that people are often not telling stories that need to be told, them are just fodder for the franchise - they need to get back to telling good stories first and building a franchise second.
I’m not sure that lack of jeopardy was the issue with Furiosa – after all, that’s always the case with prequels.
I also don’t think that Day One introduced enough new developments to keep things interesting. The concept of the monsters is so simple that the main characters figure out the “rules” (don’t make noise) within minutes of the first attack. And that’s pretty much it - we, the audience, are none the wiser about what they are, where they come from, or what they’re about by the end of Day One than we were by the end of the second movie. Personally, I didn’t find the character development as interesting as Furiosa, either.
Either way, i agree that the quality of the story matters and I think Furiosa succeed here, personally.
If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say the differences in the box office outcomes come down to the facts that the Mad Max franchise has more of a niche appeal than A Quiet Place, is more violent, and the movie was quite a bit longer in duration.
The problem with Furiosa on that front is that so many of the cast appear in Fury Road that there is little jeopardy, as you can tell if a character lives of dies as soon as they appear and thr script did nothing to subvert that.
Yep! Easily the weakest aspect of the film. I was actually surprised at just how much of the film’s setting and characters overlapped with Fury Road and how poorly it was done or managed. And I liked the film. Immortan Joe, for instance, was a let down of a portrayal compared to Fury Road while Dementus never hit the same heights as Immortan did in Fury Road.
While liking the film and being happy to have seen it … my final critical take was affirmed watching the credits which are full of snippets from Fury Road … I’m betting that the whole production of the film was too self conscious about being in Fury Road’s shadow and that being set right in the same set and setting as Fury Road assured it’d haunt the film, as it did in its release and audiences’ response to the film. Shame really, a whole new story in that world could have slapped.
