Jordan Peele’s Next Movie Won’t Deal With Race

By William Dass

The Oscar-nominated filmmaker aims to shoot his ‘Get Out’ follow-up later this year.

Get Out stunned audiences and started conversations about race that have lasted all year. Jordan Peele’s encapsulation of real, social horror mashed up against mad science is deeply unnerving. However, for his next movie, he doesn’t intend to pursue the same topic.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Peele shared some interesting details about what’s in the cards for his next film. When it comes down to it, he is just trying to make movies that entertain him and that he hasn’t seen before elsewhere. Engaged to begin production on his second film for Universal later this year, Peele is currently writing the script. Getting a bit more specific, he says:

“One thing I know is that this is genre; and playing around with the thriller, horror, action, fun, genre of intrigue is my favorite. That’s my sweet spot. So I think tonally it should resemble ‘Get Out.’ That said, I want to make a completely different movie. I want to address something different than race in the next one.”

There are a few interesting bits of news to tease out of his commentary here. The standout item of note is very much that he intends to pursue a topic other than race. While the conversation he started with Get Out is about the real horror of the state of race relations in America, the gift of his approach wasn’t simply in his deftness with that topic. His blend of genre elements was a key part of the way he explored the subject matter. While the approach may have confused professional associations who like to neatly categorize everything for awards, Get out was our 2017 Movie of the Year for almost exactly that reason.

It’s reassuring that Peele is going to continue taking this free-styling approach. The core success of Get Out is in the presentation of the topic. It’s no secret to fans of his sketch comedy show Key & Peele that he’s got hard-hitting chops with a range of social topics much wider than racial issues in America. There’s no doubt that he has the skills to put the same sharp commentary on whatever topic he approaches.

It also isn’t surprising that he might want to switch up the topic. Flat out, no bullshit, Get Out is too fucking good to tackle the same topic in a sophomore effort. He even caveated his next film that all choices for second films carry big ramifications. This is precisely because sophomore efforts are prone to failing spectacularly.

Peele has a big studio, Universal, fronting his action this time around, and this means he’s got to deliver quickly. He spent several years developing and honing Get Out to the razor-sharp concoction we received last February. Get Out was only distributed by Universal, while Peele’s own company, Monkeypaw Productions, and Blumhouse produced the film on a modest budget of $5M.

On the plus side, Peele will likely have an opportunity to spend some big bucks. There’s no mention of what kind of budget he’ll be able to play with at a major studio. But comparatively, Julius Onah’s The Cloverfield Paradox was a mid-budget genre film from Paramount Pictures produced for $45M. With that kind of cash to play around with, who knows what he could accomplish?

Regardless, whatever topic or themes he decides to tackle in his next production, you can rest assured that everyone is excited to see what’s next for Jordan Peele.

The article Jordan Peele’s Next Movie Won’t Deal With Race appeared first on Film School Rejects.