We've seen Keegan-Michael Key appear in a handful of movies already, such as HELL BABY and LET'S BE COPS, but his partner Jordan Peele has yet to make a big splash on the big screen (though he had a fairly sizable part in WANDERLUST). That's going to change when KEANU and possibly the POLICE ACADEMY reboot, but apart from his work with Key, Peele is going to flex his cinematic muscles in a new way: by writing and directing a horror film.
Peele told Playboy that he's working on a film called GET OUT for Darko Entertainment. He wrote and directed the project, which is going to be a sort of reflection on contemporary black life in the U.S. Most interestingly, he says that, though he's been strictly a comedian up until this point, his goal was always to be a horror filmmaker. Didn't really see that coming.
In Peele's own words:
"I’ve been spending the first half of my career focusing on comedy but my goal, in all honesty, is to write and direct horror movies. I have one that I’m working on with Darko Entertainment called Get Out – I don’t want to say too much about it, but it is one of the very, very few horror movies that does jump off of racial fears. That to me is a world that hasn’t been explored. Specifically, the fears of being a black man today. The fears of being any person who feels like they’re a stranger in any environment that is foreign to them. It deals with a protagonist that I don’t see in horror movies."
It really doesn't seem like Peele's trying to appear in this film, so I wouldn't count on him (or Key) starring as the film's black protagonist. KEY & PEELE's horror-themed sketches (including the one below) have always shown a savvy towards the genre and its tropes that I'm now assuming primarily comes from Peele. If he can make a knowing, but straightforward horror film without taking easy satirical potshots ("The brother always dies first!"), then it's possible Jordan Peele could cut a nice second career for himself behind the camera.
