From behind the scenes bon mots to how the film might even be connected to Get Out and
early prognosticating for its Oscar chances, here's what you need to know before you see
acclaimed filmmaker Jordan Peele's 2019 horror outing, Us.
After getting his start on the sketch comedy series Mad TV, where he spent five seasons,
it might have seemed unlikely that Jordan Peele would soon shoot to the upper echelon
of filmmakers and earn himself an Academy Award, but once audiences got to see his whip-smart
social satire on Key & Peele, the hit sketch show starring Peele and his comedic scene
partner Keegan Michael Key, they may have realized what a bright future Peele had ahead
of him.
From his pitch-perfect Obama impression to his enthusiastic valet, Peele quickly made
his mark on sketch comedy before setting his sights even higher.
"Mmmm, baked to perfection.
Can you believe it?"
Peele's 2017 film Get Out, chronicling an extremely bad weekend away for Chris at his
girlfriend's family's country house, ended up making its mark as the most profitable
film of the year as well as netting an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Peele
along with nominations for Best Director and Best Picture.
Peele has since retired from acting, noting that he prefers directing, but word is that
he hasn't changed despite moving behind the camera he brought his Obama impression back,
among others, to lighten the mood on set during Get Out.
After Get Out, which paired veteran actors like Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener
alongside lesser-known performers like Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams, Peele had to
assemble a noteworthy cast for his second film, and he certainly didn't disappoint.
Two of the first names announced were Winston Duke and Lupita Nyong'o, the former of whom
is known for roles in Person of Interest and other small film and television roles while
the latter made an unforgettable debut in Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave while she
was still attending Yale Drama School and even won an Academy Award for her work.
The two actors also notably appeared together in 2018's Black Panther, the juggernaut Marvel
superhero film starring Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan that crushed box office
records.
Aside from Duke and Nyong'o, the film features two other stars familiar to TV fans: Elisabeth
Moss and Tim Heidecker, who are known for vastly different projects.
Elisabeth Moss rose to fame on serious prestige dramas like Mad Men and The Handmaid's Tale,
while Heidecker's biggest claim to fame is his work on the Adult Swim original Tim and
Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!
"Hi me momo Tim Heidecker…
And welcome to discount prices!
Cheap cheap cheap,"
After Get Out, which was a completely original concept for a "social thriller," many fans
probably expected Peele to produce a new and completely original concept.
But it's important to recognize the genesis of Us came from one of the best works of horror
in history.
When Peele was only a kid, he watched a 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone called "Mirror
Image," about a woman waiting for a bus on a rainy evening who spots her exact duplicate
after a series of odd and disconcerting events.
Convinced that her double is sent from an alternate universe to replace her, the woman
begins to unravel and is eventually carted away, even though her double is all too real.
This isn't Peele's only brush with the famous horror anthology series he's producing and
hosting the next generation of The Twilight Zone, which will air on CBS in 2019.
Though there have been a few Twilight Zone reboots since the original series aired, this
one is perhaps the most highly anticipated.
Since Us is following one of the most beloved films of 2017, it's natural that fans would
want to find connections between the two, and theories have run rampant as to how they
might be linked.
An obvious connection is how Peele plays with issues of the subconscious, from the stolen
bodies in Get Out to the mysterious doubles in Us representing a stolen or "other" consciousness
taken from the protagonists.
The trailer for Us seems to feature some pretty overt similarities to Get Out as well, including
plenty of shots of driving as well as a straight-on shot of a tear-soaked Nyong'o that clearly
echoes the most famous shot of Get Out.
From there, the theories get pretty intense, from the importance of scissors as it pertains
to "severing" links within one's soul to the possibility that the family in Us has undergone
the central surgery from Get Out.
It's all pretty wild, but considering that Peele once told a journalist he wanted to
"weave in the universe" of Get Out into future films, maybe nothing is off limits.
Get Out was a perfect entry into horror for many viewers.
Despite just a few jump scares and plenty of gore for good measure, the film relied
heavily on emotional and psychological trauma instead of traditional horror, and was even
funny at times.
But in the end, it wasn't meant as a classic horror film, with Peele himself calling it
a "social thriller" in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock rather than a true horror movie.
"I mean, how you gonna scare a couple of adults with a puddle"
"Stupid, stupid."
Every early report on Us, however, has noted its full leap into horror after early screenings,
critics and fans flocked to the internet to tell the world that Us is much scarier than
Get Out.
Genre fans should be excited for this next chapter in Peele's filmography but for those
who love Peele's offbeat sense of humor, there's no need to worry.
Reports from screenings note that audiences were often roaring with laughter, and thanks
to Peele's sharp comedic timing mixed with his incisive social statements, Us is sure
to deliver as much of a gut-punching message as its predecessor.
Peele's second film has been hotly anticipated since Get Out conquered the box office, and
after he announced in February of 2018 that he would be working on a second film, fans
of horror and Key & Peele alike have been waiting.
Though the wide release of the film was originally supposed to take place on March 15, 2019,
the producers and Peele wisely bumped it back to March 22 after Us landed an opening night
slot at the South by Southwest film festival, where it screened to overwhelming acclaim.
Reactions were universally adoring for the frightening film, with fans noting that it
was everything from terrifying to gorgeous to stunningly acted, driving up enthusiasm
for those who didn't get the chance to check out Us in Austin.
Jordan Peele broke several Oscar barriers with his debut film.
He walked away with the statue for Best Original Screenplay, making history as the first black
screenwriter to ever win the award.
With this highly pedigreed background, it seems all but inevitable that Us will be a
serious contender in the next awards season, but thanks to its genre, that isn't guaranteed.
Only six horror films have ever been nominated for Best Picture, and horror films and the
performances within are frequently overlooked.
With plenty of Oscar veterans in the cast, Us may stand a chance, but it remains to be
seen whether Academy voters will let horror films back into the fray so soon after Get
Out.
When fans and reviewers start wondering about Us' Oscar chances, the first mentions will
likely go to Nyong'o's leading performance.
Since winning an Oscar, the star has kept plenty busy, appearing on Broadway in Eclipsed,
as well as joining the Star Wars universe as motion-capture character Maz Kanata . Her
biggest post-Oscar project, however, was Black Panther, in which she appeared as Nakia, a
Wakandan spy and love interest to Chadwick Boseman's King T'Challa, joining the Marvel
Cinematic Universe in one of its highest-grossing films yet.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Nyong'o is being singled out for Us.
Along with the rest of the main cast, she plays two parts Adelaide, a wife and mother,
as well as Adelaide's terrifying double, known only as "Red."
New York Magazine describes Nyong'o's performance as her own doppelgänger as "an achievement
on another level," while the Los Angeles Times notes that the film "belongs to Nyong'o."
With a modest budget of $4.5 million, Get Out would have been a success at the box office
even if it had a completely average theatrical run, but Peele's debut grossed $255 million
worldwide with a net profit of over $120 million, making it the tenth most profitable film of
2017 as well as earning the distinction of being the highest-grossing original screenplay
since The Blair Witch Project.
Thanks to Get Out's success, Peele was given much more budgetary breathing room for his
follow-up.
Peele wanted more financial flexibility, and thanks to his established success as well
as the first-look deal that Universal made with his production company, Monkeypaw Productions,
he was afforded a $20 million budget for Us.
By increasing the budget but still keeping it low enough that the studio would be unlikely
to interfere with the finished product, Peele walked a difficult line to make sure he could
make Us exactly as he planned.
Beneath the horror and the humor that make up the backbone of Peele's filmography lies
a foundation of involved, complex messages, and between Get Out and Us, the director and
writer has a lot to say about America.
In Get Out, Peele infused a question of self-examination, and with all this in mind, it made it even
more satisfying for viewers to watch Chris escape at the end of the film, knowing that
he could remain himself and keep ownership of his body.
"Consider this situation f------- handled."
Peele and the cast of Us have kept details fairly close to the vest, remaining vague
about specific plot points, but Peele has been clear about his intentions, noting that
when groups or individuals don't take clear looks at themselves both as people and as
Americans evil is given the chance to survive and thrive.
With "The Tethered," the doppelgängers in the film, Peele can express both an internal
and wide-reaching fear of "others," making viewers really think as they leave the theater.
Besides being a box office smash, Get Out was a critical hit and cultural phenomenon
upon its release, even inspiring a college course on racism and horror.
Like its predecessor, Us racked up plenty of raves before it saw wide release, following
in Get Out's footsteps to earn an initial 100% on Rotten Tomatoes after its hit opening
at South by Southwest in early March.
If audiences were worried about a "sophomore slump" from Peele, this doesn't seem to be
the case, and though the score may dip as more reviews come in, this stunning critical
early showing is still a strong indicator for the film's future reception and its potential
box office earnings, adding another success to Peele's career.
Jordan Peele is a self-professed lifelong horror fan, so it shouldn't be surprising
that he found his way into the genre, even if he did get his start in side-splitting
sketch comedy shows.
For Get Out, Peele noted ahead of the film's release that he took inspiration from everything
from classic films like Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives when it came to informing
tone and the building of tension but considering that Us is reportedly much more classically
scary than Get Out, it stands to reason that Peele would have an entirely new list of inspirations.
Peele revealed his "reading list" of sorts well before Us' release, and even told star
Lupita Nyong'o to watch ten specific films so that they could have a "shared language"
on set.
Between classics like The Birds and The Shining, modern hits like The Babadook, and foreign
films like Let the Right One In, this varied and diverse list is the perfect primer for
any horror fan that wants to brush up before Us.
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