WATCH: Lupita Nyong‘o and Joseph Quinn explore New York in ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’

The “Quiet Place” franchise is going strong. The new film is a prequel story, following survivors on the first day of the arrival of the terrifying aliens. “A Quiet Place: Day One” stars Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn and is set in New York, a completely new setting for a franchise that’s grown associated with nature and wide open spaces.

“A Quiet Place” was a big hit when it came out in 2018, marking John Krasinski as a director to keep on your radar. The sequel came out in 2021, continuing the story of a family of survivors of the apocalypse, who are living in a world inhabited by terrifying aliens that use sound as their method to hunt.

“A Quite Place: Day One” is directed by Michael Sarnoski and is set in New York. It follows the first day of the apocalypse in one of the most crowded and loudest cities in the world. “This notion of a quiet New York is one that will arrest many,” said Nyong’o to Entertainment Weekly.“It's an impossible thing to imagine…. When you live there, you block out all the sound quite naturally. You just forget to hear the sound. I realized how hard it would be to survive in a world that required you to be silent in that particular city.”

The film follows Sam (Nyong’o), a New York tourist who pairs up with a stranger named Eric (Joseph Quinn) in order to survive, with the two banding together to navigate the city and this new world they’re in. “We have these disparate individuals who collide into each other's lives, and it is at a very pivotal time for the world,” explains Nyong’o. “How do they negotiate survival together? What we get is really interesting — and even surprising — chemistry in the characters that meet each other along the way.”

Nyong’o developed a special relationship with one of her co-stars

Nyong’o was also accompanied by a very important co-star as she shot the film. Sam travels to New York with her cat, Frodo, which was a unique experience for Nyong’o and changed her outlook on cats.

"Our relationship had a very steep arc," she said. "I was afraid of cats when I started this movie. By the end of the movie, I was crying leaving that cat. Now I am definitely a cat mom. I have my cat's fur all over me, and I think of it as a symbol of affection, which I never imagined I would."

“A Quiet Place: Day One” premieres in theaters on June 24.