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40% Of Audience At Record-Breaking Opening Weekend For ‘Us’ Said They Saw The Movie Because Jordan Peele Was Director

40% Of Audience At Record-Breaking Opening Weekend For ‘Us’ Said They Saw The Movie Because Jordan Peele Was Director

Jordan Peele, winner of the award for best original screenplay for “Get Out”, poses in the press room at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Get Out” director Jordan Peele has another blockbuster on his hands. His latest, “Us,” starring Lupita Nyong’o, rocked the box office last weekend, pulling in $7.4 million and making history. It raked in more than other recent horror hits such as “The Nun” and “A Quiet Place,” which made $5.4 million and $4.3 million, respectively.

“Us” is about a Black family who meets up with evil doppelgangers. The movie now boasts the No. 1 launch for an original horror title, according to The Hollywood Reporter.


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But there’s more to the story than just another hit film. According to Comscore Inc. analyst Paul Dergarabedian, 40 percent of the “Us” audience said they saw the movie because Peele was the director, proving the power of his brand and contradicting the long-held Hollywood notion that films starring Black and/or by a Black director won’t rank as blockbusters.

And the filmgoer demographics was also surprising. “Thirty-six percent of viewers were white, 30 percent were African-American, and 21 percent were Hispanic,” Bloomberg reported.

“There has been a lack of imagination in Hollywood, which sets us up to bring in really new, creative ways of storytelling,” Peele told Variety last year. “The imagination, especially, when we talk about representation, has been dull. For years and years and years, there’s this preconceived notion that diversity presents a struggle for projects. Well, the truth is, we haven’t invested in diversity. We haven’t invested in artists. So there’s a lack of courage, and I think, when you take leaps and you bring courage and confidence to projects, it works.”