Nope Director Jordan Peele Shares the John Carpenter Project He’d Revive (Exclusive)

Filmmaker John Carpenter has delivered audiences multiple genre masterpieces, with Nope director Jordan Peele often expressing how much he loves Carpenter’s work, and while Peele isn’t particularly interested in attempting to reboot a Carpenter film, he admitted that, were Carpenter himself to approve of such an endeavor, he’d be open to delivering his take on Escape from New York to a new generation. Given how much acclaim Peele has earned for his projects up to this point, all of which have been original endeavors, it’s difficult to imagine a world in which he would want to revisit an established and acclaimed adventure that wouldn’t also reinvent it in unexpected ways. Nope is out now on Digital HD and hits 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on October 25th.

When asked by ComicBook.com what Carpenter-approved revival he would be most interested in, Peele admitted, “Really, really excellent question. You know what? It’s tough. Let’s just say Escape from New York, which is my hometown.”

He added, “Big fan of all his work. I would say The Thing, but that’s a remake and one of the greatest films ever done. You don’t want to remake one of the greatest.”

Keke Palmer, who stars in Nope, chimed in to point out how Peele is known to circumvent expectations, detailing, “In my mind, I was thinking to myself, I wonder what he’d say because everything for you is so, so original. So if you did remake something, it would probably be totally different anyway.”

Peele confessed, “I would do it with his guidance, let’s put it this way, whatever I did.”

Over the years, a number of Carpenter projects have earned reboots, with the filmmaker himself often offering his seal of approval, so long as he gets a paycheck for those revivals. The most active involvement Carpenter has had in any reboot is serving as a producer and composer on the David Gordon Green-directed trilogy of Halloween films, which just concluded with Halloween Ends.

Possibly complicating any notion of Peele adapting Escape from New York are the various reports in recent years that The Invisible Man filmmaker Leigh Whannell was developing his own reboot of the concept, though with those reports having come up over the course of years, it’s unclear if that project will ever officially move forward.

In Nope, following their father’s shocking death, Hollywood animal wrangler OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister Emerald (Palmer) begin observing unexplained phenomena on their vast Southern California ranch that leads them down an obsessive rabbit hole as they plot attempts to capture the mystery on camera. Along with a former child star turned family theme park ringmaster (Steven Yeun) who neighbors the siblings, the pair’s efforts to chase the spectacle soon bring terrifying consequences and unimaginable horror. The result is a complex social thriller that unpacks the seeds of violence, risk, and opportunism that are inseparable from the romanticized history of the American West … and from show business itself.  

Nope is out now on Digital HD and hits 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on October 25th.

What Carpenter film would you like to see Peele revive? Let us know in the comments!