Get Out is now the highest-grossing film in Blumhouse history, and it's still growing. The domestic total now sits at $150m, but the film only just now fell out of the top 5 (in its 5th week of release). A final total north of $160m is guaranteed. Plus, Get Out has added nearly $7m from the UK over the past two weeks. An expansion into further international markets remains on the horizon.
Pretty good for a from a first-time director, Jordan Peele, who was only working with a micro budget of $4.5m budget. It's the most impressive box office debut for a new director since Elizabeth Banks' record-breaking Pitch Perfect 2. Thus, Peele won the Director of the Year award at CinemaCon this week, meaning the nation's theater owners all love how his movie keeps packing in audiences long after most modern films would have faded away.
After receiving the award, Peele spoke to THR about what he hopes Hollywood learns from Get Out's success (particularly as it comes after the similar success of Straight Outta Compton and Hidden Figures). Hollywood, of course, usually learns the wrong lessons from success, but Peele hopes that surely the trend of well-performing black-helmed or black-fronted movies is too consistent at this point to be considered a fluke:
I think the lesson is that when you give black voices a platform and the opportunity to tell our story, we will tell good stories just like anybody else. The power of story and the power of a well-crafted film or television show is really all you need to speak to people. I think Hollywood is sort of catching up to that. We're at the beginning of a renaissance where people are realizing black films can not only work at the box office, but they can work because there's been a void. Get Out is fresh and novel and new because at the base level it has a black, male protagonist in a horror movie. It is no mistake that the iconic image from this movie is Daniel's face with tears streaming down his cheeks. We haven't seen that before. Usually in horror movies - as in Blair Witch - it is the white girl's crying face.
Peele is currently in the process of picking his next project, but the offers are pouring in, including a rumor about him targeted as the director of a live-action . However, his sketch-comedy career is officially over. The future for him is in writing and directing social thrillers like Get Out. Maybe others will get a similar chance due to Get Out' s success.
