For over a decade, Jordan Peele made audiences laugh as a cast member of numerous comedy series. Often associated with his collaboration with Keegan-Michael Key on their sketch comedy series, Key & Peele, Peele has been heavily credited as a humorous figure. Peele proved he wasn’t a one-trick pony following the premiere of his directorial debut film, Get Out, in 2017, which shocked and horrified audiences around the world.
Peele’s directorial debut would earn 4 Academy Award nominations and Peele would take home the award for Best Original Screenplay. Two years later, Peele continued to horrify audiences with Us, which starred Lupita Nyong’o and Wilson Duke as parents on a vacation that quickly makes a turn for the worse. This year, Peele looks to continue his frightening success with Nope.
Like many of Peele’s previous horror projects, little is known about Nope. The teasers for the upcoming film have revealed that James (Daniel Kaluuya) and Jill (Keke Palmer) Haywood are the only black-owned horse trainers in Hollywood. One night, an abnormal event shuts out their power and frightens their horses, sending some running for the hills. Glimpses of aliens and frightening creatures are seen throughout Nope’s trailer and its title is likely an acronym that confirms that. While the characters in Nope or Not of Planet Earth will face some sort of alien threat, what this uncommon threat is after is still unknown.
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Academy Award-nominee Steven Yeun will also star in Nope. Yeun is only spotted briefly in the teasers for Nope, but like Kaluuya and Palmer, he’ll likely be another terrorized by the otherworldly threat the film will introduce. With so little known about the film, it’s hard to know how Nope will stack up among the successes of Get Out and Us. However, keeping a level of ambiguity around Peele’s creations isn’t new. While Get Out’s trailer revealed a considerable amount of the plot, Us tried to conceal a little more.
Of Peele’s three films, there is certainly the least amount of information known about Nope. The teasers have only shown brief glimpses of the setting and several of its characters, making it impossible to figure out exactly what the film has in store. Details about Nope have been released sporadically, only elevating the audience’s intrigue in the film. On that front, Nope has already begun to massively compete with Get Out and Us. When its mystery is combined with the legacy Peele has created with films he has written and directed, Nope has the potential to draw a massive audience. This draw could result in the largest success of Peele’s career thus far.
As diverse as the subject matter of Peele’s films are, Get Out and Us share a commonality that will be repeated in Nope. Both Get Out and Us turned familiar environments into nightmares, and now Nope looks to do the same. Nope’s setting in a rural town already provides it with a classic horror backdrop where anything could go wrong. The ordinary lives of the horse trainers will be turned upside down as the Haywood ranch falls victim to the abnormal threat that looms in the skies above them, and the hidden threats that walk the Earth beside them.
Peele’s disruption of normalcy began in 2017 with the premiere of Get Out. Chris Washington (Kaluuya) agrees to travel to the home of Rose’s (Allison Williams) parents. As if the pressure of visiting his girlfriend’s parents for the first time isn’t scary enough, the concerns Chris has adds another layer of worry. Before their trip, Chris asks Rose if her parents know he’s Black, which she brushes off, insisting that they won’t care. Chris’ fears are further supported by the strange behavior of the Armitage family, their employees, and their sinister motives.
Us further disrupted the ordinary. Unlike Get Out, there are no overt commentaries on race. Instead, Us is designed to be a straight horror film. Adelaide (Nyong’o) and Gabe (Duke) take their children Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex) on a family vacation that quickly turns sour. The four meet their doppelgängers (which are referred to as the “Tethered”), who have lived underground, mimicking their lives. The Tethered have emerged to untether themselves from their human counterparts by killing them. The shocking discoveries made throughout Us make it Peele’s most unsettling film to date.
Nope has the potential to surpass all of Peele’s previous creations in the past few years. Knowing Peele, the mystery surrounding the film won’t leave viewers with an unsatisfying end. His creations have earned a reputation for being original and stepping outside the normal horror story. Get Out dealt with racial themes within a horror setting, while Us was an unconventional story of doppelgängers. With Nope’s apparent dealing with an extraterrestrial being, under Peele’s creativity, the film will surely be a different kind of alien saga. What the strong suits of Nope will be can only be answered once the film hits theaters.
Nope is expected to premiere in theaters on July 22, 2022.