One of the biggest comparisons Jordan Peele has gotten since delving more into the horror realm is that of Alfred Hitchcock. As seen with the critically-acclaimed Get Out and Us, he's an expert at building suspense as Hitchcock did, opting more for cerebral storytelling that plays on the viewers' psyches rather than the typical tropes of gore and death.
What helps build this mental tension is Peele's work invokes social justice messages, especially leaning into racism from a Black perspective. While it seemed like his upcoming film, Nope, might have been an acronym hinting at an alien invasion as opposed to going deeper into the human condition, that might not be the case. Instead, the movie's title may instead be a simpler anagram that once more suggests another social justice horror story will unfold.
With the trailer not confirming what the entities are that cracked the sky open to seemingly suck people up, one theory suggested the title of the film stands for "Not Our Planet Earth" or "Not Of Planet Earth." It posits that aliens will be abducting people, creating an extraterrestrial apocalypse of sorts and making humanity pay for their sins.
However, as seen with the Key & Peele sketches on Comedy Central, more often than not, Peele is all about simplicity. It showed with Get Out basically depicting a Black man who needed to get out of a relationship with a white woman before her family possessed his body. Us told the story about dark replicas of people beneath the streets wanting to take over on the surface that became a war of "us versus them." Sure, it was nuanced and prodded at inequality and injustice, but the titles pretty easily correlated to the narrative. Interestingly, by swapping the letters around, "Nope" becomes "Open," which ties into a few things in the teaser. Firstly, it's directly linked to a hole in the sky opening up, leaving humanity petrified at this unexplainable act.
Secondly, as people get sucked up, "open" may speak to something that's often divided the world: religion. Rather than aliens, this hole may be divine, touching on biblical themes where religious people, who weren't as open-minded, suddenly find themselves with the same people they deemed sinners fighting this threat.
This way, Nope can instead focus on people who have opened themselves up to evil, no matter their beliefs, causing them to be taken by the mysterious figures. And ultimately, whether it be aliens or something heavenly, open minds and souls -- no matter their creed or race -- rebelling would fit the director's usual motif. It'd create an air of equality and dissect acceptance, once more having Peele speaking to our differences and how in the face of tragedy, everyone must open their hearts and unite to save the world.
Nope is set to drop into theaters on July 22.