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Frodo the cat was the star of “A Quiet Place: Day One.” The two cats who portrayed him sparked a viral challenge.
One of the biggest stars of the new movie, “A Quite Place: Day One” is Frodo the cat (who was actually portrayed by two cats.) The black-and-white kitty became so popular that a new video challenge is trending in Frodo’s honor.
In the franchise for “A Quiet Place,” the storyline revolves around an alien invasion where people are killed if they make the slightest sound. As The Wrap explained, the monsters have eyeless heads, run on all fours, are excessively strong, and hear very well. To survive, humans have to adapt to a new, quiet way of life to avoid detection.
The first two movies, “A Quiet Place” and “A Quiet Place II,” followed one family as they hid from the alien invasion. The movie starring Frodo the cat, “A Quiet Place: Day One,” takes place in New York City. Frodo is Samira’s service animal, but once the invasion takes place, he figures out that he needs to stay quiet to survive too, Variety reported.
The new “A Quiet Place” cat challenge involves cat owners testing their own kitties to see if they could survive the alien invasion. Participants hold their cat in their arms, running quickly, to see if their cat will stay quiet.
Most Cats Don’t Stay Quiet During the Challenge
In the movie, Frodo was a good boy who stayed very quiet while Samira and Eric ran with him in their arms. But cat owners acknowledged that in real life, this was less likely to happen.
On X one person wrote: “Let me tell you, with the way my cat meows for food or after visiting the litter box, I wouldn’t last 5 minutes in that apocalyptic scenario.”
On TikTok, the “Quiet Place” challenge is taking off.
The challenge usually begins with the cat owner holding their kitty and introducing them. Participants will typically say something like: “This is my cat, Frodo, and we’re going to see if we’d survive in ‘A Quiet Place’ if we had to run from the aliens.”
The videos are typically very short and the cats often fail before the test even starts.
Sometimes the cats meow extra loud when their owner is running.
But some people’s cats actually passed the test. In this next video, both of their cats “survived.”
Here’s another video where the cat survived more than one round.
Two Cats Played the Role of Frodo in the Movie
The role of Frodo is played by two black-and-white cats, Schnitzel and Nico, Variety reported. And the movie didn’t have to create a CG cat at any point. The two cat actors were well behaved on the set.
Director Michael Sarnoski told Variety that because Frodo is a trained service animal in the movie, it was more believable that he would obey Samira and be quiet.
“Cats can be extremely quiet,” Sarnoski said. “They’re predators, they can stop and move very silently, and I figured, game recognizes game. So when a cat saw these creatures operating, they’re like, ‘I get you, I’m going to just kind of keep it down.’”
Sarnoski told Variety that he also learned that meowing is used by cats to communicate with humans. So without people around, cats might naturally make less noise anyway.
Lupita Nyong’o, who plays the role of Samira, had a lifelong phobia of cats. But a cat trainer helped her prepare with exposure therapy. By the end of the movie, she loved cats so much that she adopted her own cat, Yoyo, Variety shared.
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