A Quiet Place: Day One spoilers follow.
Thanks largely to Frodo (we kid, but kind of), A Quiet Place: Day One has made a massive noise at the box office with the biggest debut of the series to date.
The horror prequel takes place at the start of the alien invasion as Samira (Lupita Nyong'o) and Eric (Joseph Quinn) attempt to survive in New York City with Samira's service cat Frodo, played expertly by cats Schnitzel and Nico.
As with the other movies in the series, you could pick certain holes with A Quiet Place: Day One in terms of just how loud you have to be for the aliens to spot you.
However, writer/director Michael Sarnoski has come prepared for anybody questioning why Frodo barely makes a noise during the movie, apart from meowing a "couple times".
"I liked the idea that he's a service cat and early on, she says, 'Hey, keep quiet'. She's almost trained the cat to not annoy everyone at the hospice centre," he told The Hollywood Reporter.
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"I read a study about how a lot of meowing is learned behaviour. It's how they communicate with human beings. When cats are on their own, they don't meow that much. So I figured that when the apocalypse happens and everyone’s gone, they would maybe keep it down.
"I also felt like cats are natural, silent predators and game recognises game. They would see these aliens and see what they're doing and understand their predatory nature and realise, 'Oh, I better better keep quiet'."
Sarnoski added that there was initially more of Frodo hissing and arching his back, but once he was told he couldn't do it practically, it was removed from the script.
"There's no way to train a cat to do that. It's a natural reaction they have when they feel threatened or traumatised. And we won't traumatise a cat," he noted.
A Quiet Place: Day One is out now in cinemas.
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
