Now that he’s made the transition from “the guy who played Jim on The Office” to “filmmaker behind a hit horror surprise,” there’s an important lesson that John Krasinski needs to learn: If you’re a white man who has done one successful thing in Hollywood, you have to keep doing that thing over and over again until you either die or fail a dozen times. A Quiet Place was huge, but despite that, he seemed to be under the impression last year that there was a chance Hollywood would allow him to make one popular movie and then stop without running the idea into the ground by making a bunch of sequels. Then, once it became clear that a sequel was an inevitability, he apparently thought that Paramount Pictures would just let him move on without making the sequel himself. Krasinski knows Michael Bay, does he think Bay actually wanted to make all of those Transformers sequels and not that the studio was forcing him?
Anyway, Krasinski caved eventually and agreed to write the A Quiet Place sequel, teasing back in October that it would be some kind of exploration of the world instead of a straight continuation about the same characters. Now, though, he has told Empire that he might not direct A Quiet Place 2, simply saying “we’ll see” in regards to his possible return. Again, Michael Bay made so many Transformers movies, and every time he tried to convince people that he wouldn’t make another one. Krasinski isn’t some singular auteur with a completely unique style, so it’s not like some other person couldn’t direct A Quiet Place 2, but Krasinski is a famous man who directed, co-wrote, and starred in the original movie. They won’t let him out of this without a fight.
A Quiet Place 2, whether Krasinski directs it or not, will be in theaters on May 15, 2020.