#Hold Your Horses, There’s A New Nope Poster

According to press releases sent out for the film over the last month, Peele is billing the film not just as a horror movie, but as a “horror epic.” With that in mind, what can we expect from “Nope”?

Well, there’s a lot we don’t know, and that’s Peele’s style. But we can deduce that the movie will be a horror story on a massive scale that utilizes its terrors to reflect back to us our fear the unknown. How? Let’s look at the definitions — there are a few — of an “epic.”

a long film, book, or other work portraying heroic deeds and adventures or covering an extended period of time.

a long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation.

heroic or grand in scale or character.

I think it’s safe to say that “Nope” is going to play into these definitions seamlessly, because it is clear by what little footage and promotional imagery we’ve gotten so far that there is something sinister out there beyond our comprehension. That in and of itself is grand, and a quest to defeat it — or even just evade it and live to tell the tale — is heroic. It’s clear “Nope” is going to be a cautionary tale, a horror folklore to pass down from generation to generation, and knowing Peele, it will be in the form of something we’ve never seen before.

“Get Out” star Daniel Kaluuya will reunite with Peele to lead the new film alongside Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun. The trio will play “residents in a lonely gulch of inland California who bear witness to an uncanny and chilling discovery,” according to the movie’s official synopsis.The film also costars “Westworld” star Michael Wincott and “The OA” star Brandon Perea.

Peele directs from a script he wrote, which he will also produce for his company, Monkeypaw Productions, alongside Ian Cooper, who also produced “Us” and Nia DaCosta’s “Candyman.” The film will be released worldwide by Universal Pictures on July 22, 2022.