Us, Jordan Peele’s follow-up to his breakout hit Get Out, dominated the weekend box office, raking in an estimated $70 million in ticket sales. Peele’s sophomore effort took in more than twice as much as Get Out (which debuted with a 33 million dollar haul) and with such a healthy start, Us should be able to come close to what Peele’s original foray into the horror genre generated back in 2017.
While Us’s box office is certainly impressive, as it is one of the highest grossing original horror films of all time after only one weekend, it may have a hard time sustaining the momentum and word-of-mouth that Get Out capitalized on. Us has been an unabashed hit in the eyes of critics (with a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but audiences seem to like, but not love the picture. When examining the metrics associated with audience reactions, ticket buyers gave Us a 70% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a lukewarm CinemaScore of B.
These numbers are in stark contrast to Get Out, as movie-goers gave the film a 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a very positive A- on Cinemascore. Us should be able to cross the $100 million mark fairly easily by next weekend, but whereas Get Out played for weeks based on audience recommendations and good will, Us may perform more like a front-loaded blockbuster, than a grass roots hit. Us will most likely catch up to Get Out’s domestic take of $176 million, but the film may have a more difficult time surpassing the worldwide box office totals ($255 million). The competition also gets stiffer for Us very quickly with Pet Sematary, Shazam, and Hellboy all releasing inside of the next two weeks.
If you are looking for a review of Us, be sure to check out HNN’s John Evans’ deft analysis, and be on the lookout for HNN’s Spring Horror Movie Preview, coming next week.
