Jordan Peele’s ‘Nope’ Dominates Box Office, Debuts at No. 1 With $44 million

Jordan Peele has his third box office smash under his belt after his thriller Nope debuted at number one with an estimated $44 million in ticket sales.

While the numbers are nowhere close to the $71 million Peele’s 2019 film Us raked in its opening weekend, it’s still the biggest opening for an R-rated original screenplay during the pandemic.

The film raked in $6.4 million on Thursday night. By Friday, Nope was nearing $20 million.

The audience was 68% of 18-34 viewers, which is a “sweet spot” for horror films. Moviegoers were also diverse consisting of 35% Caucasian, 33% Black, 20% Hispanic, and 8% Asian.

Its IMAX experience accounted for about $5.2 million of its opening weekend earnings, something the IMAX CEO was extremely happy about.

“It’s incredibly gratifying to see a visionary like Jordan Peele, who represents a new generation of filmmakers, use our technology in pioneering ways and create an experience meant to be seen in IMAX,” IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond said.

The $41 million earned during the opening weekend will help Peele recoup all that he spent to create the alien thriller. With a $68 million production budget, Nope is Peele’s most expensive film to date, excluding marketing and promotion costs.

Us cost around $20 million to make, while 2017’s Oscar-winning Get Out was estimated  to cost around $4.5 million to produce. Both films made over $255 million worldwide.

Nope, which stars Get Out‘s Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, and Steven Yeun, has received mostly positive reviews from film critics and currently rests at 83% on Rotten Tomatoes. The flick pays homage to UFO films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Signs, CBS 17 reported.