Us (2019 Film)

About

Us is a 2019 American horror film directed by Jordan Peele (Get Out) and starring Lupita Nyong'o, Elisabeth Moss, Winston Duke and Tim Heidecker.

History

On May 8th, 2018, director Jordan Peele tweeted ^[1] a poster for the upcoming film Us. The post received more than 84,000 retweets and 312,000 likes in less than one year (shown below, left).

Later that year, on December 25th, 2018, Universal Pictures released the first trailer for Us on YouTube. The post received more than 15 million views in less than four months (shown below, right).

Reception

Ahead of the film's release, Us received overwhelmingly positive reviews. As of March 11th, 2019, the film had a 100% fresh rating (based on 41 reviews) on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. ^[2] The film's final score was 94% fresh (based on 344 reviews). In their critical consensus, the site wrote, "With Jordan Peele's second inventive, ambitious horror film, we have seen how to beat the sophomore jinx, and it is Us."

After its premiere in March 2019, Awards Circuit writer Clayton Davis tweeted,^[3] "Jordan Peele's "Us" is a horror masterpiece. We are witnessing the birth of our modern day Hitchcock. 20 years from now we will ask one another what our favorite Peele film is & you will get 10/12 different answers. Incredible performance from Lupita Nyong'o!" The post received more than 3,500 retweets and 19,000 likes in three days (shown below).

Box Office

In its opening weekend, Us grossed more than $70 million domestically, more than tripling its $20 million budget. The film broke two records that weekend, becoming the largest opening weekend for an original horror film and the largest opening weekend for an original R-rated film.^[4]

Online Reaction

Following the release of the film's trailer, many posted One Perfect Shot-style parodies of the trailer's use of doppelganger imagery (examples below). These memes typically showed two versions of the same subject, adding the caption "Us (2019)."

This continued after the film's release, as people shared videos and images of other properties that involved twins or doppelgangers, known in the film as "the tethered." Twitter user @TomZohar tweeted a clip from the 1996 film The Parent Trap, adding music from Us to the soundtrack. The post received more than 2,200 retweets and 7,100 likes in less than one week (shown below).

Twitter user @xxMERE captioned a clip from a Beyoncé music video "The gays meeting their 'Us' clones." The post received more than 12,000 retweets and 36,000 likes in less than one week (shown below).

Others made mention of Lupita Nyong'o performance in the film, which many believe deserves recognition by the Academy Awards, posting memes of her near Oscars or writing captions that reference her winning in 2020 (examples below).

Search Interest

External References