A Quiet Place 2 is no longer coming to theaters on its original March 20 release date. Paramount Pictures, the studio behind the movie, has delayed the release indefinitely thanks to concern over the global COVID-19 pandemic, according to director John Krasinski.
Announcements of the delay first started on Thursday morning as European theaters and distributors received word that A Quiet Place 2 wouldn’t make its scheduled debut of March 18, a move also reported by Deadline. Shortly after, Krasinski made the announcement official, saying that it was choosing to postpone the movie’s release around the world.
This is the third major release to be delayed thanks in-part to COVID-19. Last week Universal Pictures and United Artists announced that they were pushing back the release latest James Bond film, No Time To Die. Sony followed, shifting the date for Peter Rabbit 2 off of Easter weekend. While Universal and United Artists moved No Time to Die’s release to November, Paramount has yet to announce a new date for A Quiet Place 2.
A Quiet Place 2 continues the story of the Abbott family, which started in the 2018 original, also directed by Krasinski. The film will show both the origins of the deadly sound-hunting monsters as well as what happened after the harrowing showdown that ends the original movie.
A Quiet Place was originally released in April 2018 and became a massive breakout hit. While summer isn’t usually high-time to horror movie success, the film found a huge audience and drew in nearly $200 million at the US box office and over $340 million worldwide. While Paramount had originally hoped to repeat this early-summer success with the sequel, it’s now unclear if the movie will make that release window after the delay.
While A Quiet Place 2 is only the second film to delay its release so far, it’s possible that many more could follow as the spread of COVID-19 continues. On Wednesday morning, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it was officially classifying COVID-19 as a pandemic — the first time it’s done so since 2009’s H1N1.
After the WHO announcement, more high profile cancellations followed. On Wednesday night the National Basketball Association (NBA) announced that it was suspending its regular season indefinitely, with no word on whether or not the league would return for the 2019-2020 season. The NBA had originally considered playing its games in empty arenas, but after one of the league’s players was positively diagnosed with COVID-19, the NBA instead chose to take a larger step.
Meanwhile, in California on Thursday morning, Governor Gavin Newsom recommended that any gathering of 250 people or more, which could include things like concerts, sporting events, or movie premiers, should be postponed or cancelled, at least through the end of March. Prior to Governor Newsom’s recommendation to postpone these smaller events, cancelled or postponed events had mostly been limited to large-scale events like South by Southwest, Coachella, or Electronic Entertainment Expo that attract thousands of attendees a year.
While smaller events like haven’t necessarily been advised against yet, COVID-19 has taken a considerable toll on the global box office, particularly in the countries that had the most confirmed cases including China and Italy. But if more state governments make similar recommendations, making people even less likely to go to theaters, it’s entirely possible that more movies will push their releases back before the summer is over.