Jordan Peele has done it again. After the massive, breakout success of his first feature film as writer-director, “Get Out,” Peele went even further into the horror genre with his latest, “Us.” And judging by the first weekend’s ticket sales, it would seem that Peele is destined to put himself up there with some of the biggest names in filmmaking. But as he described in a recent panel, he’s not willing to follow the typical, industry-approved standards, now that he’s found success.
Speaking at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (via THR), Peele talked about “Us,” as well as what the success he’s found has afforded him. Basically, he has already made waves doing his own thing, so that’s exactly what he’s going to keep on doing.
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The filmmaker’s recent success started in 2017, with the aforementioned “Get Out.” However, despite the Oscar-winning film making tons of money at the box office, when Peele was writing the script, he kept second-guessing himself, wondering if that film was the right one to create.
“Every two weeks I’d go, ‘What the fuck am I doing? I’m writing a movie where a black man is victimized and all the white people are evil and I’m trying to get the audience to have fun,’ but if you could make that fun … that’s what brought me back,” he said.
We all know how the story goes from here. “Get Out” dominates box office and earns incredible accolades. Peele would go on to receive tons of offers from major studios for him to make a follow-up. And because of that, the filmmaker says he feels incredibly fortunate to have his newfound credibility, with the power it grants him.
“The way I look at it, I get to cast black people in my movies,” the director said. “I feel fortunate to be in this position where I can say to Universal, ‘I want to make a $20 million horror movie with a black family.’ And they say yes.”
But don’t go expecting Peele to go off to make the next major blockbuster film with a studio-approved white male lead. No, the filmmaker has other ideas in mind.
“I don’t see myself casting a white dude as the lead in my movie. Not that I don’t like white dudes,” he said. “But I’ve seen that movie.”
He continued, “It really is one of the best, greatest pieces of this story, is feeling like we are in this time — a renaissance has happened and proved the myths about representation in the industry are false.”
No word on what Peele has up his sleeve for a follow-up to “Us.” The filmmaker has a ton of projects in various stages of development, with his production company working tirelessly on films and TV projects, including “The Twilight Zone” reimagining that is hitting CBS All Access beginning on April 1.