In the modern filmmaking world, sequels and franchises are unquestionably the dominating force. Every movie made by a major studio is a multi-million dollar gamble, and executives are obviously a lot more comfortable with giving the green light to projects with which audiences are already at least vaguely familiar than something brand new and original.
It’s knowing this that makes the career of Jordan Peele stand out in a big way. After the phenomenal success of Get Out, he hasn’t changed gears and started working on big tentpole features; instead, he has continued to direct new, original horror films – following Get Out with Us and the upcoming Nope. It makes Peele a fascinating outlier in the industry, and according to him, he feels driven towards that path because of what he perceives as both a responsibility and a demand.
Jordan Peele spoke about his remarkable career last night during the Universal Pictures presentation at CinemaCon – the annual Las Vegas convention for theater owners. On stage to introduce an exclusive preview of Nope, he spoke about sticking to original films since making such a crazy splash with his directorial debut, and why he has chosen the projects he has made. Said Peele,
I’ve always been attracted by the prospect of my favorite movie I haven’t seen before and what that could possibly be. And that to me is in the spirit of movie making. I think that after the reaction to Get Out, I was awarded this real privilege and this responsibility to try and make new films and trying to tell original stories that come from me.
Continuing, Jordan Peele added that he feels that the movies he makes are the movies that his fans want him to make, saying,
Because I think that’s what my fans want. That’s what my fans tell me they want, and so until somebody stops me, or tells me I can’t, my plan is to bring these new ideas and bring these dreams and bring these nightmares to the big screen.
The key to this special magic trick is that Jordan Peele has essentially become his very own brand. His name alone now has a track record of bringing movie-goers into theaters, so he doesn’t need to be working with established intellectual property in order to reel people in. After Get Out and Us, audiences are excited by the prospect of seeing an original creation straight from Peele’s mind, and that is an awesome and rare power that very few filmmakers possess today – the major exceptions being names like Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese.
Movie fans will soon be seeing the clout of Jordan Peele exercised again, as he has one of the most exciting movies of the summer in the works with Nope. The movie was first announced last summer and it has a scheduled release date for July 22. There’s still a lot about it that we don’t know (the official trailer for the film left us asking a lot of questions), but curiosity about the feature’s mysteries should only make the surprises it has in store more impactful when they unfold on the big screen.
While you wait for the latest opus from the writer/director, you should head over to our Jordan Peele streaming guide to discover all of his movies and TV shows available to watch right now.