Universal Pictures’ “Nope” opened atop the domestic box office with $44 million this weekend, according to estimates from measurement firm Comscore.
The latest cinematic offering from writer-director Jordan Peele met early box-office expectations after earning rave reviews from film critics. With “Nope,” Peele has achieved a rare Hollywood hat trick: His first three feature films have debuted at No. 1 at the domestic box office.
Set in Southern California, “Nope” stars Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as siblings and horse ranchers who discover a flying saucer hovering ominously over their family’s desert home. Also among the main cast of the sci-fi thriller are Brandon Perea, Michael Wincott and Steven Yeun.
Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer star in an otherworldly thriller that follows in the heady and ambitious footsteps of Peele’s ‘Get Out’ and ‘Us.’
Peele’s highly anticipated follow-up to “Get Out” (2017) and “Us” (2019) received a certified fresh 82% rating on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, as well as a lukewarm B-grade from audiences polled by CinemaScore.
In his review for The Times, film critic Justin Chang deemed the movie “an unusually well-made and imaginative thriller that’s sometimes tripped up by its own high-mindedness — and also, perhaps, by a closing stretch that struggles to bring Peele’s grand intentions together.
“Still, there’s no denying the richness of his ideas or the skill with which he taps into his inner Steven Spielberg,” Chang added, “an inspiration that can seem tiresome in the wrong hands, but which here feels uniquely pointed and purposeful.”
‘Nope’: All the references, Easter eggs and inspirations behind Jordan Peele’s new movie.
Rounding out the top five at the domestic box office this weekend are Disney and Marvel Studios’ “Thor: Love and Thunder,” which added $22.1 million in its third weekend for a North American cumulative of $276.2 million; Universal Pictures’ “Minions: The Rise of Gru” grossed $17.7 million in its fourth weekend for a North American cumulative of $297.9 million; Sony Pictures’ “Where the Crawdads Sing,” which made $10.3 million in its second weekend for a North American cumulative of $38.3 million; and Paramount Pictures’ “Top Gun: Maverick,” which collected $10 million in its ninth weekend for a North American cumulative of $635.6 million.
Opening in wide release next weekend is an extended cut of A24’s fantasy epic “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” as well as Focus Features’ “Vengeance” and Warner Bros.’ “DC League of Super-Pets.”
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Christi Carras is an entertainment reporter at the Los Angeles Times. She was previously a Times intern after graduating from UCLA and has also worked at Variety, the Hollywood Reporter and CNN.