Jordan Peele's Get Out follow-up Us is expected to pull in $35-40 million on its opening weekend, according to reports from Deadline.
The writer-director-producer-actor's second movie is slated to do slightly better than Get Out, which was itself a sensation. That film pulled in $33 million on its first weekend and had a record-breaking run.
Peele's debut was the highest-grossing original first feature in box office history, surpassing a record set by another horror movie that captured the nation's imagination, 1999's found-footage pioneer The Blair Witch Project. Peele became the first ever black writer-director to break the $100 million mark on a debut; Get Out quickly became Blumhouse Productions' most successful film.
That last bit isn't just idle talk. Making blockbusters out of budget horror movies is Blumhouse's stock-in-trade. They struck gold with the original Paranormal Activity movie, pulling in $107 million domestically on a film that cost just $15,000 (that's not a typo). They parlayed that success into a damn near unassailable run of low-budget horror flicks that manage to wow audiences and critics alike.
Their recent hits outside of Peele's movies include the gonzo slasher Happy Death Day and the latest Halloween movie. Jason Blum's production house has managed to rack up $4 billion at the box office on a string of movies that rarely crack $5 million in their budgets. Blumhouse and Peele have been key actors in a bit of a commercial horror resurgance, with storytellers and talented directors trying their hand at the formerly sidelined genre.
