Titled Get Out, the film will be a collaboration between Peele and Blumhouse Productions, the studio responsible for a string of recent, low-budget thrillers including The Gift and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit that found tremendous success at the box office. Exact details of the film’s plot are under wraps, but the story will reportedly follow “a young African-American man who visits his Caucasian girlfriend’s family estate.”
“People know me for my work in comedy, but now I’ll get to focus on my passion for writing and directing horror films,” said Peele in a statement accompanying the announcement. “Like comedy, horror has an ability to provoke thought and further the conversation on real social issues in a very powerful way. Get Out takes on the task of exploring race in America, something that hasn’t really been done within the genre since Night of the Living Dead 47 years ago. It’s long overdue.”
Although Peele has a long list of credits as an actor on various television series and has been nominated for six Primetime Emmy Awards for his writing, Peele has yet to step behind the camera as a director. Get Out will serve as his directorial debut, and will likely be the second feature-length film he’s penned. (Keanu, a comedy he co-wrote with Key and Peele writer Alex Rubens, is currently in production and scheduled to hit theaters in April 2016.)
Along with his work on Key and Peele, Peele recently appeared in the Netflix prequel series Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp and is attached to play the voice of a main character in the upcoming Captain Underpants animated feature.
