New Video Details How Jordan Peele’s “Nope” was Shot With IMAX Cameras
Writer/director Jordan Peele is nothing if not ambitious. His directorial debut, Get Out, was an astonishing, game-changing horror film that established him as one of the most unique filmmakers of his generation. Peele nabbed an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, while Get Out‘s star, Daniel Kaluuya, saw his career takeoff—he won a Best Actor Oscar for his stunning performance in Judas and the Black Messiah a few years later. Peele’s follow-up film, Us, was no less audacious and terrific as Get Out, and was, by our lights, egregiously overlooked by the Academy. This brings us to his third feature, Nope, which is his most ambitious film to date.
“Nope stands apart from my other films in that it’s a bigger adventure than I’ve ever tried to tell,” Peele says at the outset of the new look. “From a filmmaking perspective, it’s by far my most ambitious.”
Nope is centered on the Haywood siblings, OJ (Kaluuya) and Emerald (Keke Palmer), whose family has owned a horse ranch in a dusty gulch in Southern California for generations. OJ stayed behind to run the ranch while Emerald moved on, but in Nope, Emerald is back on the ranch when things start to get very, very weird. Some uninvited guests show up and start causing trouble, which would be bad enough if these trouble-makers were merely human, but the main problem for the Haywoods is that these guests appear to be from another planet. Yet this extraterrestrial trouble could turn into a goldmine for the Haywoods, if only they could capture footage of their new guest—a freakin’ alien ship—and make history.
“I purposely wrote something without any regard to how possible it was,” Peele continues. “Thankfully, the great Hoyte Van Hoytema, one of the best cinematographers and mastermind behind some of my favorite films and favorite imagery responded to the script and the challenges.”
“It’s a very exhilarating ride,” Hoytema says. “We shot on IMAX cameras, and we were not shy of doing very extreme or crazy things with those cameras.”
“When you’re shooting on IMAX you just know you’re doing something cinematically special,” Peele says. “The image is so overwhelming it feels like you’re there. I wanted immersion, the awe and the fear and the wonder we all had when we were kids.”
We all want to be immersed when we go to the movie theater, and few directors are as good at creating that environment as Jordan Peele. With Nope, we’ll get his most immersive, ambitious film yet.
Check out the new IMAX video below. Nope hits theaters on July 22.
Here’s the synopsis for Nope:
“What’s a bad miracle?”
Oscar® winner Jordan Peele disrupted and redefined modern horror with Get Out and then Us. Now, he reimagines the summer movie with a new pop nightmare: the expansive horror epic, Nope.
The film 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.
Nope, which co-stars Michael Wincott (Hitchcock, Westworld) and Brandon Perea (The OA, American Insurrection), is written and directed by Jordan Peele and is produced by Ian Cooper (Us, Candyman) and Jordan Peele for Monkeypaw Productions. The film will be released by Universal Pictures worldwide.
For more on Nope, check out these stories:
Daniel Kaluuya & Keke Palmer Highlight New “Nope” Trailer & Inside Look
“Nope” Behind-the-Scenes Look Reveals Jordan Peele’s Biggest Swing Yet
Jordan Peele’s “Nope” Gets Epic Outdoor Screening Venue With Alamo Drafthouse
Final “Nope” Trailer Reveals Clever Plot of Jordan Peele’s Alien Horror Film
Featured image: Daniel Kaluuya is OJ Haywood in “Nope.” Courtesy Universal Pictures.
