Jordan Peele says next movie could be his favourite

Production of Peele’s fourth film was delayed by last year’s Hollywood strikes

Jordan Peele has revealed that his long-awaited next film “could be my favourite movie”.

The director behind 2017’s Get Out, 2019’s Us and 2022’s Nope had planned to start production on his fourth film last year, and it was initially slated to be released on Christmas Day 2024.

However, work was delayed by the Hollywood strikes and no new release date has yet been set.

Speaking on the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast, Peele said that 2023 had been “an interesting year” because “the writer’s strike had had me in a state of listening, and that’s where I need to be.”

However, he added that his as-yet-untitled next film project is taking shape.

“I do feel like my next project is clear to me,” said Peele, “and I’m psyched that I have another film that, you know, could be my favourite movie if I make it right.”

As is typical of Peele’s films, no other information regarding the plot or casting has yet been released.

Jordan Peele in Los Angeles in 2023 (Getty Images)

Last year, Peele belatedly offered fans an explanation for one of the most widely debated moments in his third film Nope.

The film focuses on two siblings, played by Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer, who encounter a strange UFO near their ranch in Agua Dulce, California.

One of the other plot threads follows Ricky “Jupe” Park, a former child actor who once survived a deadly rampage by a crazed ape on the set of the (fictional) 1990s sitcom Gordy’s Home.

In a flashback, we see Ricky as a child hiding while the ape attacks his co-stars. What catches his attention, however, is a shoe – balanced perfectly upright.

Later, the shoe is seen displayed in Jupe’s secret Gordy’s Home tribute room, still in the upright position.

Fans had long speculated over the meaning of the upright shoe, and during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast Peele finally shed some light on the symbolism.

“The shoe represents a moment where we check out of a trauma,” he said. “Jupe zones in on this little shoe – that’s Mary Jo’s shoe – that has landed in a precarious, odd situation, and this is the moment he dissociates.”

Peele also referred to another line in the film, in which Kaluuya and Palmer’s characters discuss the notion of a “bad miracle”.

“In one way, it’s the impossible shot. It’s the impossible moment... Yes, it’s a bad miracle. Very good. You got it. You got the shoe,” he told podcast host Josh Horowitz.

In a five-star review of the film for The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey wrote: “You could, certainly, make the argument that Nope is the most straightforward of Peele’s films so far. He’s traded the claustrophobic, labyrinthine quality of Get Out and Us for open skies and pure spectacle.

“But the genius of his work is that, in the end, none of that really makes any difference. He still gets the same results. Peele, really, is the magician disguised as a filmmaker. Nope is the sleight of hand so slick you’ll never question how the trick was pulled off.”