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.
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.