Jordan Peele’s highly anticipated sci-fi horror, Nope, has shot to the top of the US box office in its opening weekend taking in a substantial $44 million from 3,785 theatres, and garnering ‘out of this world’ receptions from critics and audiences. This will be Peele’s third consecutive film to take the number one spot in its opening weekend and also his third foray into the horror genre after his Oscar winning debut Get Out and critically acclaimed follow-up Us.
In an incredible feat, ‘the new pop nightmare’ has achieved the highest opening weekend for any original movie since Peele’s last feature, Us, in 2019 which brought in an unfathomable $71 million in its opening weekend. This means Nope also beat out major blockbusters from veteran directors has including Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which started with $41 million, Rian Johnson’s Knives Out and its $26 million opening, and even Baz Luhrmann’s audience favourite Elvis which took in $31 million in its opening weekend.
Despite Nope’s failure to match Us’ exceptional opening weekend results, the film has once again proven Peele’s formidable talent as a creator and in generating blockbuster level buzz for a genre that has historically struggled to reach a mainstream audience. Speaking on Nope’s box office performance, Head of Franchise Entertainment Research, David A. Gross confirmed, ‘the weekend figure is far above average for the genre.’ The success of Nope has also shown there is still significant interest in original content where franchises and remakes have dominated the box office.
The ‘expansive horror’ reunites Peele with Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Judas and the Black Messiah), who is joined by Keke Palmer (Hustlers, Alice) and Oscar nominee Steven Yeun (Minari, Okja) as residents in a lonely gulch of inland California who bear witness to an uncanny and chilling discovery.
While many critics and fans have compared Peele to modern-day Hitchcock as a result of his redefining the horror genre with Get Out and Us, star Kaluuya has suggested Nope draws more similarity to Steven Spielberg’s classics, “Nope—I feel like it’s almost horror-adventure. I hope you don’t mind me saying, like Close Encounters. I remember when I watched that for the first time, probably about four years ago, and I was like, Wow, this has stood the test of time. This is an incredible film now, especially with all the technology and all the kinds of stuff that he’s managed to make. It’s like epic horror, essentially.”
Prepare to get spooked and no matter what you do, don’t look up! The mind-bending epic opens in Australian cinemas on August 11th.
