Jordan Peele Teases Expansion of ‘Nope’ Universe, Says Fans ‘Will Get More Answers’

The door is open for more stories in Jordan Peele’s Nope universe.

The New York Times’ Mekado Murphy ran some Reddit speculation up the flagpole to the 43-year-old writer/director, informing him “there’s some online chatter about a character who was cut from the film, listed as Nobody on IMDb.”

Asked if he can talk about the role credited to Michael Busch, Peele replied, “People are doing a lot of interesting detective work, is what’s going on. … The story of that character has yet to be told, I can tell you that. Which is another frustrating way of saying, I’m glad people are paying attention. I do think they will get more answers on some of these things in the future. We’re not over telling all of these stories.”

Pressed on whether all is at it seems with his characters at the end of Nope or if one is “a vision” for another, Peele said, “I think I made a film that has a very clear sequence of events as to what happened. I think it is very clear, and I will leave that at that. When a story works, it’s because I’m tapping into a story within somebody. What I find interesting is, what did you first think? I know what I thought, but what you thought is what’s more important to me.”

The Key & Peele veteran touched on audience interpretations in his conversation with Karla Rodriguez for Complex in July when talking about fans recommending multiple theatrical viewings.

“I think sometimes people like to watch the movie intently and really try to treasure hunt and figure everything out,” Jordan said. “Sometimes you don’t want to think too hard, you want to walk into a movie, you want to be taken care of, you want to be taken to a different place, you want to be put back in your car, and I think Nope can do either one of those for you.”

Nope opened to $44 million at the domestic box office, marking Peele’s third consecutive film to debut at No. 1 and the highest-grossing U.S. opening for an original screenplay since his own Us arrived in 2019. Starring Keke Palmer, Daniel Kaluuya, and Steven Yeun, the flick has since racked up $117.8 million in the U.S. and $149.3M globally.