Get Out Is Now The Highest Grossing Original Screenplay Debut

04/02/2017 05:10 pm EDT

Jordan Peele is having a great year so far, and we're only a quarter of the way into it.

The sketch comedy giant will no longer be referred to as 'sketch comedy giant' for his main descriptor, and will be referred to as 'acclaimed, award-winning, record breaking horror director' instead.

This is on the heels of his directorial debut Get Out, starring Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, and Bradley Whitford, which has made over $156 million at the worldwide box office so far. Get Out debuted in domestic theaters on February 24 and has only just now debuted overseas.

The success puts it ahead of The Blair Witch Project as the highest-grossing debut film from a writer-director, catapulting Peele to the top of Hollywood's rising stars.

Peele was also rewarded at CinemaCon in Las Vegas last week, where he was named the Director of the Year by the National Association of Theater Owners.

"With the phenomenon known as 'Get Out," Jordan Peele has instantaneously become a force to reckon with as a gifted and enormously talented director and filmmaker," said CinemaCon Managing Director Mitch Neuhauser in a statement.

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"He has audiences and critics around the globe enamored and spellbound, dare I say hypnotized, with his wildly inventive directorial debut, and we are ecstatic to be honoring him as this year's 'Director of the Year.'"

Peele was also the first African-American writer and director to gross over $100 million in a debut film, a feat achieved after Get Out's third week in theaters.

Overall, the success of Get Out is one of the most surprising and refreshing stories in Hollywood this year. Hopefully it leads to more innovative and unique offerings from new voices, an aspect that has been sorely missed in the reboot-obsessed Tinseltown.

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[h/t] BoxOfficeMojo

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