Jordan Peele’s Nope scared up a win at the weekend box office with an estimated $44 million debut, giving the filmmaker his third consecutive No. 1 release.
The horror thriller centers on the residents of a lonely gulch in inland California, who bear witness to a chilling discovery. The film stars Keke Palmer, Daniel Kaluuya, Brandon Perea, Michael Wincott, Steven Yeun, and Keith David.
The Universal Pictures release opened in 3,785 locations across the U.S. and Canada, for a solid per theater average of $11,625, according to box office tracking company Comscore.
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The film was written and directed by Peele, and is his third feature after the Oscar-winning Get Out and Us.
The top markets for Nope were Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Houston, Philadelphia, and Phoenix, Deadline reported Sunday.
Critics gave the thriller an impressive 83 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, calling it “viscerally entertaining,” although “less engaging” than Peele’s previous work.
While the movie scored the best opening for an original, non-sequel this summer, its debut was much lower that Peele’s Us, which opened with $71 million in March 2019.
Nope had a reported $68 million production budget, which will make it more difficult for the movie to turn a profit. Get Out cost $4.5 million and earned over $250 million worldwide in 2017, making it a massive success. Us had a budget of $20 million and brought in $255 million worldwide.
Peele’s latest release opened big on Friday with $19.5 million, but interest fell slightly on Saturday with the film ringing up $13.9 million in ticket sales. Sunday’s take was about $10.4 million.
Elsewhere at the box office, Thor: Love and Thunder slipped to second place after two weeks in the No. 1 spot. This weekend the Marvel film grossed $22.1 million.
Minions: The Rise of Gru was third with $17.7 million in its fourth week in theaters. Where the Crawdads Sing took fourth place with $10.3 million in its second weekend.
Top Gun: Maverick rounded out the top five after adding another $10 million to its take for a total North American haul to $635.5 million in nine weeks.
Check out the box office chart below courtesy of Comscore.
