Jordan Peele announced himself with Get Out, the Universal and Blumhouse production that not only earned $255M at the box office, but also scored four Oscar nominations and a win for “Best Original Screenplay”.
He’s back again with his latest social horror, US (read our review), which is the talk of the town after peeling back several layers of fear over this past weekend. Early estimates peg the horror film with a massive $70M opening here in the States, which bests Get Out‘s impressive $33M opening. As for international numbers, Us added $16.7M overseas for a global take of $86.9M. If you want to use last year’s Halloween as a comp (the film opened to similar numbers and was also distributed by Universal), Us should easily break $250M in its worldwide run.
Us now holds the largest weekend for an original horror movie, surpassing A Quiet Place, as well as the biggest launch for an original R-rated film behind Ted, notes Variety.
For those keeping track, the budget for Us was reportedly $20M, which means a sequel is all but guaranteed if Peele were to want to make one.
Us is set in present day along the iconic Northern California coastline and stars Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o as Adelaide Wilson, a woman returning to her beachside childhood home with her husband, Gabe (Black Panther’s Winston Duke), and their two children (Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex) for an idyllic summer getaway.
Haunted by an unexplainable and unresolved trauma from her past and compounded by a string of eerie coincidences, Adelaide feels her paranoia elevate to high-alert as she grows increasingly certain that something bad is going to befall her family.
After spending a tense beach day with their friends, the Tylers (Emmy winner Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Cali Sheldon, Noelle Sheldon), Adelaide and her family return to their vacation home. When darkness falls, the Wilsons discover the silhouette of four figures holding hands as they stand in the driveway. Us pits an endearing American family against a terrifying and uncanny opponent: doppelgängers of themselves.
READ ALSO: Jordan Peele’s Us Has a Really Fun Easter Egg Connection to The Lost Boys
