Following the success of Get Out, Jordan Peele will continue his stint in genre-filmmaking with a new horror-thriller titled Us. Written and directed by Peele, it's scheduled to be released March 15, 2019. This is his first feature film since Get Out, which broke barriers as a horror film by winning an Oscar for best original screenplay.
Us is also Peele's first project under his deal with Universal Pictures that he signed with his company Monkeypaw Productions in 2017. Principle production for Us began on Friday.
Details of the plot are minimal, but it will center on two couples: one white, one black.
While promoting Get Out in 2017, Peele spoke on on Variety's "Playback" podcast about directing future horror films. He said, "I wanna stay in the genre. While I was developing [Get Out] I was also simultaneously developing four other projects that I call social thrillers."
The cast for Us has been rounded out with several young actors, including Shahadi Wright Joseph (the voice of Young Nala in the live-action adaptation of The Lion King), Evan Alex, Madison Curry, Cali Sheldon, and Noelle Sheldon. They join Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o along with cast members Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid's Tale), Winston Duke (Black Panther), Tim Heidecker, Yahya Abdul Mateen II (Aquaman), and Anna Diop (24).
"Each [social thriller] is meant to deal with a different human demon; a different monster that sort of lurks underneath the way that we interact with one another as human beings," Peele said.
Peele's creative team includes production designer Ruth De Jong (Manchester by the Sea), editor Nicholas Monsour (Key and Peele), costume designer Kym Barrett (The Matrix), and Mike Gioulakis, the cinematographer responsible for the haunting visuals in the 2014 horror film, It Follows. Peele also reunites with the composer from Get Out, Michael Abels.
"To come up with the perfect monster for a horror movie we really need to look no further than the monster that is all of us," Peele said. "Not so much an individual psycho killer, but the humanity that gets lost between us.
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