Nope Getting A Director’s Cut?
Jordan Peele hopes he can release a director's cut of Nope, adding as much as an hour and a half of footage.
Collider reports that Jordan Peele has confirmed that he is interested in putting together an extended director’s cut of Nope, although it has not been decided if that will actually proceed. The original rough cut of the film ran longer than three hours and 45 minutes, resulting in Peele having to cut much of the footage that was shot for the movie. Fans seem to want to know what exactly was in those extra minutes of film, particularly because the movie is so well put together as presented in its original form.
Nope stars Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as siblings who discover a UFO flying above their California desert ranch, threatening their livelihood and fracturing the concept of monetizing spectacles that have since surrounded their neighboring towns. It is the third in Jordan Peele’s filmography as a director, succeeding the very popular Get Out and his sophomoric effort Us that starred Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, and Elisabeth Moss. For the psychological horror movie Get Out, Peele won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, becoming the first black winner in the category.
Nope is still considered a financial success even with several theaters throughout the United States playing the film on both IMAX and regular screenings. The movie has so far grossed over $166 million at the box office against a budget of $68 million, making it one of the most successful non-IP films in years. Unfortunately for Jordan Peele, that pales in comparison to his first two films, with Get Out grossing over $255 million against a budget of just $4.5 million, as well as Us that also grossed $255 million against a budget of $20 million.
Nope has also gone on to great acclaim among audience members that have seen the film, as well as critics who have had a chance to review it. Rotten Tomatoes currently ranks the movie as Certified Fresh with an 82% on its Tomatometer based on 413 critics’ reviews, along with an Audience Score of 68% from over 5,000 verified ratings from users to the site. If an extended directors cut is available in the not so distant future, it will be interesting to see what the fanbase is like for a film like this given the dark themes and current runtime of over two hours.
For writer and director Jordan Peele, his days as a horror movie auteur seem to just be getting started as he appears to have dethroned M. Night Shyamalan as the go-to suspense director of the current era. With the monstrous success of his first feature film, Get Out, the former comedian and improv extraordinaire appears to have a knack for bringing tantalizing stories to the silver screen, often with hidden meanings, lots of jumps, and quite a few scares. If his hopes of getting a Nope director’s cut are realized, fans might actually get to see it before it arrives on streaming services like Peacock or Hulu.
