'Nope' trailer cryptically teases Jordan Peele's new 'expansive horror epic'

It's time to say yep to Jordan Peele's next horror outing.

Universal Pictures on Sunday revealed a spooky but cryptic trailer for Peele's third horror film Nope. Starring Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer, the movie follows residents of a California town "who bear witness to an uncanny and chilling discovery," per the official synopsis.

The creepy new footage never actually outlines what that discovery is, though it certainly looks to be related to aliens, and fans have already speculated the title could stand for "not of planet Earth." The trailer introduces Kaluuya and Palmer's characters as horse trainers for Hollywood productions before ominously showing residents looking up at something mysterious, as a massive shadow looms over the landscape and eventually, Palmer is dragged up toward the sky.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

After primarily being known for his comedy work in shows like Key & Peele, Peele pivoted to horror with his directorial debut Get Out in 2017, a socially conscious satire about racism that drew some of the best reviews in the genre of the past decade and earned Peele an Oscar for screenwriting. He followed it up in 2019 with Us, which centered around a family terrorized by their own doppelgangers and also received positive reviews. Both of Peele's first two films grossed over $250 million at the box office, and in a few short years, he's established himself as a director whose movies automatically become events — and who can get audiences to turn out for an original story not based on a pre-existing property.

Nope also stars Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, and Brandon Perea, and Universal's synopsis said that Peele "reimagines the summer movie" with this "expansive horror epic." It hits theaters in July.