Jordan Peele Revealed ‘Nope’ Was a ‘Whole Lot of Movie’ After its First Cut
It didn’t take Jordan Peele long to find success when he transitioned from making TV shows to making movies. He hadn’t even directed any Key & Peele episodes, his hit Comedy Central show with collaborator Keegan-Michael Key, before scoring big with his debut movie Get Out. The director’s latest movie, Nope, could be his next big hit, but Peele revealed he had to do a lot of work in the editing room to trim what was a “whole lot of movie” after the first cut.
Jordan Peele established himself as a movie director with ‘Get Out,’ ‘Us,’ and ‘Nope’
Peele’s first movie script was for Keanu, which reunited Key and Peele a year after they stopped working together on their show. He co-wrote the screenplay with Alex Rubens, but he worked alone with Get Out.
Peele wrote, produced, and directed Get Out. The movie, which included Peele having an emotional discovery while writing it, earned four Academy Award nominations, and Peele won at the 2018 Oscars for best original screenplay.
Get Out proved successful financially, too. It earned nearly $256 million worldwide on a budget of just $4.5 million, per IMDb.
Peele took creative control with Us and Nope on the heels of Get Out. Nope could be his biggest hit yet, as it opened with $44 million, which is the best for an original (non-sequel) movie since Us, per Box Office Mojo. Peele wrote, produced, and directed Nope, but some of his hardest work might have come in the editing room as the director said it was “a whole lot of movie” after its first cut.
Peele reveals ‘Nope’s first cut was nearly four hours: “It felt like a whole lot of movie”
Nearly all movies start long and then get edited down. Thor: Love and Thunder auteur Taika Waititi trimmed several guest roles (and has no plans to release a director’s cut). Nope was the same way.
During an in-depth conversation with Collider (via YouTube), Peele revealed Nope’s first cut clocked in at nearly four hours:
“My editor is Nick Monsour. He’s the guy I worked with in ‘Us.’ He’s just a brilliant guy and a brilliant collaborator. The first cut, I don’t remember, I feel like it was 3 hours, 45 minutes. Which is fairly typical. It may have been more, it felt like a whole lot of movie, and it was, and it is a whole lot of movie. So part of my journey sort of crafting a film is finding the real essentials of a story, both from a plot standpoint but also from the feeling and mood of it. He did a fantastic job.”
Jordan Peele discusses his first cut of Nope
Peele and Monsour eventually trimmed down Nope to a 2-hour, 10-minute runtime, per IMDb, and it came with some hard choices.
An early scene was one of the most difficult to edit
As Peele noted, editing a movie is about flow and feel and not making a long film. The director said one of the earliest scenes in the movie — when Keke Palmer’s Emerald Haywood character films a commercial — was one of the most difficult to put together.
“Keke Palmer, I’ve never really worked with her in a real sense. I worked with her briefly on Key & Peele, but she’s a brilliant improviser, it turns out, as well as a brilliant actor and great at memorization.
“[T]hat first speech where she comes out … I mean she gave me about 20 different reads and takes and options, and it was just one of those moments where you see somebody showcasing all the talents that they’ve learned to take the written word, but also kind of go off and make it their own. That’s why I’ll say that was one of the hardest things to choose.
“It’s like you could’ve just left the camera on. She’s just cracking me up with her dancing. So it’s very interesting. Comedy ends up being one of the more difficult things to edit, if not the most difficult because every frame can cascade the whole dynamic into a different direction.”
Nope, the digestible 2-hour, 10-minute version and not Jordan Peele’s epic first cut, is now playing in theaters.
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