John Krasinski Signs First-Look Deal With Paramount Pictures

EXCLUSIVE: With A Quiet Place II set to become one the first major summer tentpoles to bow in over two years on Memorial Day weekend, Paramount Pictures has moved to make sure its multi-talented writer, director and star stays put for the foreseeable future. Sources tell Deadline that John Krasinski and his production company, Sunday Night, have entered into a first-look producing deal with Paramount, including Sunday Night partners Allyson Seeger and Andrew Form.

Projects in development under the new deal include a new installment of the A Quiet Place franchise, with Jeff Nichols set to direct, as well as Apartment 7A, to be directed By Relic helmer Natalie Erika James and produced via Sunday Night and Platinum Dunes. Next up is an untitled Ryan Reynolds-John Krasinski film, which also falls under the deal; Krasinski is writing, directing and producing, with Reynolds starring and producing. The studio recently announced that the film will be released November 17, 2023.

“I’m thrilled to be continuing my relationship with Paramount who have been the most supportive partners throughout the creation of our A Quiet Place world and in the development of these new original stories that we can’t wait to tell,” Krasinski said.

When Paramount named Jim Gianopulos its new CEO in 2017, one of the first major moves he and his new leadership group made was giving the greenlight to the original A Quiet Place. After breaking box office records and earning critical praise, It would not only deliver a new franchise for the studio but also helped in launching Krasinski’s career has an A-list director and eventually greenlighting a sequel quickly after. While the sequel has had to push its release due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Gianopolus and Motion Picture Group president Emma Watts have shown how important the franchise is by sticking put and pushing forward with a release while so many other studios have had to send their major properties to streamers over the past year.

A Quiet Place Part II is set to be released May 28 and follows the Abbott family (Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe) after the deadly events at home and shows how they must now face the terrors of the outside world as they continue their fight for survival in silence. Forced to venture into the unknown, they realize that the creatures that hunt by sound are not the only threats that lurk beyond the sand path.

“John Krasinski is the most formidable quadruple threat (writer, director, producer and star) out there, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to continue our collaboration with him, and his partners at Sunday Night,” Paramount Motion Picture Group president Emma Watts said.

Krasinski and Sunday Night are repped by WME and Schreck Rose Dapello Adams Berlin & Dunham.