Peele’s “Nope” To Show Both Horror & Joy

Universal Pictures has released another featurette for Jordan Peele’s expansive horror thriller “Nope” with he and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema talking the film’s large-scale and filmmaking.

Peele also recently spoke with Essence Magazine about the movie which follows two siblings (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer) who set out to record video evidence of a UFO. Peele has become known for “Get Out” and “Us,” and a key name in the sub-genre known as ‘Black horror’.

With “Nope,” he says he’s trying to expand on that definition to show the other side of the coin – joy:

“It’s so tricky being considered in the vanguard of Black horror, because obviously Black horror is so very real, and it’s hard to do it in a way that’s not re-traumatizing and sad

I was going into my third horror film starring Black leads, and somewhere in the process I realized that the movie had to be about Black joy as well, in order to fit what the world needs at this moment.

So that is part of why there’s sort of a spectrum of tonality of the genre in here because I wanted to give the horror, but I also wanted to give our characters agency and adventure and hope and joy and fun that they deserve.”

Peele dubs the film as the “great American UFO horror movie that I haven’t seen”. Kaluuya tells the magazine the freshness is what drew him to the project:

“I love pushing the envelope. We’re in a creative industry, but people will sometimes handle this like they’re working at the bank. It’s nuts to me. Let’s go – let’s create. I don’t like hearing, ‘Oh, I’ve never seen that before.’ That’s the point. That’s why people watch films. So it was amazing to be in the center of something that I used to love watching as a kid as well.”

“Nope” is scheduled to make its debut in cinemas nationwide on July 22nd.