Jordan Peele’s Mysterious “Nope” Reveals Stunning Footage at CinemaCon
Jordan Peele is one of our modern masters at creating suspense, mystery, and tension, and packing it all into a riveting, nearly unclassifiable genre of film. Social horror? Straight-up thriller? The labels don’t matter, the movies do, and the movies are great. Get Out won Peele a richly deserved Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and seemed to change the horror game overnight. Then his follow-up Us, unjustly not lavished with trophies, was a sinisterly delicious follow-up that expanded Peele’s vision and proved his filmmaking chops beyond a shadow of a doubt. Which brings us to Universal’s CinemaCon presentation in Las Vegas, in which Peele’s Nope, his third feature as a director, was a major draw. When asked if Peele would be showing new footage, he slyly replied “nope.”
Luckily, he was kidding.
“The discovery and the surprise of it is part of the fun,” Peele said during a brief Q&A on the Colosseum stage inside Caesars Palace with Anthony Fykes of Next Act Cinema in Pikesville, Maryland. Next Act Cinema is the first Black-owned theater in the Baltimore area. “Trailers will give you a taste, but we want to retain some of the mystery, so you can be satisfied going to the damn movie,” Peele said.
But then Peele delivered a brand new extended trailer, which further emphasized the fact that, yes, Jordan Peele has made an alien movie. Peele asked those in attendance (some 3,000 plus exhibition insiders) to stay mum on what they saw until the rest of the world gets a peek in a few more weeks.
What can be shared is that Peele shot the film in 65 mm and IMAX, which he said allowed him to “capture incredible images” with brand new techniques.
“This is definitely a ride. I like titles that are into how the audience is feeling and reflect on what they are thinking and feeling in the theater,” Peele said. “I’m going to personally thrive on the amount of times that we hear Nope in the theater.”
Nope reunites Peele and his Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya, with a great cast supporting him including Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Brand Perea, Barbie Ferreira, and Michael Wincott. The plot details are sparse—we know it involves a Black-owned ranch that works with Hollywood productions and unidentified aerial phenomena (or unidentified flying object, if you want to use the more common parlance) that will have major implications for our characters.
Nope is one of Universal’s big releases this year, but it’s got a doozy of a slate. Halloween Ends, She Said, Violent Night, Jurassic World: Dominion, and Armageddon Time to name a few.
If you were to ask us if there was a film we were more excited about than Peele’s, though, you know the answer.
Nope.
Nope opens on July 2.
For more on Nope, check out these stories:
Jordan Peele’s New Movie “Nope” Deploys Steph Curry in Creepy New Promo
Jordan Peele, Christopher Nolan & More Developing New IMAX Cameras
Jordan Peele’s “Nope” Trailer Wows During Super Bowl
Featured image: LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – APRIL 27: (L-R) Jordan Peele and Anthony Fykes, Co-owner of Next Act Cinema speak onstage during CinemaCon 2022 – Universal Pictures and Focus Features Invites You to a Special Presentation Featuring Footage from its Upcoming Slate at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace during CinemaCon, the official convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners, on April 27, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for for CinemaCon)
