How Jordan Peele, Antonio Banderas and sea monsters lift these animated films out of the shadows
A new animated movie is born. And then a week later, another. And then another. This fall, a second animated comedy from New Zealand director Jordan Peele has had a remarkable opening weekend in the U.S., grossing $8 million from 2,892 theaters, placing it in the top 10 for best openings of the year and leading the overall animated film charts.
“Us” did a number-one debut in its second weekend, pulling in $5.5 million, according to studio estimates Sunday; it still took in an estimated $6.6 million in its second run. And the third “Us” installment, opening on Oct. 16, could well break the record for the highest opening weekend of an animated movie to date, besting both “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” ($4.3 million) and “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” ($4 million).
So how did this series start? Well, it doesn’t look like there was a lot of time to waste. “Us” is the second film in a trilogy that began with “Get Out,” Peele’s breakout 2016 movie, featuring Jordan Peele as a filmmaker who is trying to save his friends from a dystopian, racist, gun-toting future. The second and third stand-alone movies, coming Sept. 29 and Oct. 3, respectively, are titled “Us” and “Us: Part 2.” Like “Get Out,” both “Us” movies began with the titular line, “Us” — “Us” — as the title of the film, with Peele later adding “Us: Part 2.”
“I’d never really seen an animated movie,” said Peele in an interview with Variety. “I did meet a director [at a screening], and then he never ever stopped talking. I was like, ‘We should go see a movie!’” Peele went through a number of directors, finally finding the right fit in the director of “Get Out.”
The director also didn’t want “Us” to be just another
