Lupita Nyong’o latest film, “A Quiet Place: Day One,” smashed box office expectations when it opened July 28. Premiering behind Disney’s “Inside Out 2,” the film landed the biggest opening in the entire franchise, proving not only the series’ staying power but also Nyong’o’s enduring draw as a Black A-lister in Hollywood.
As Variety reported, the film made $53 million domestically and $45.5 million internationally, earning a total of $98.5 million. In a year that has been shaky at best for the industry, the film’s initial success is a much-needed win — and as Variety points out, is a rarity consdering “spinoff stories usually don’t bring in as much business as direct sequels.”
Last month. Will Smith proved his worth yet again with the release of “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” a project that helped shake up an otherwise sleepy spring box office. “Bad Boys” killed it at the box office during a time when Smith’s bankability post-“The Slap” was brought into question — by non-Black folks.
A big takeaway — and a lesson it seems Hollywood has a hard time learning again and again — is that Black audiences are an important audience to win over. We matter, and we want to see ourselves onscreen.
And, as Nyong’o has proven more than once, Black folks are also down with all things horror. For years, the genre relied on tropes (we all know “The Black Guy Dies First” has been debated and dissected for years), but creators like Jordan Peele and DeWayne Perkins — who won audiences over with last year’s “The Blackening” — are paving new ground in Black horror.
“Us,” Jordan Peele’s second film, captured the zeitgeist (and yes, the box office) in 2019 with a horrifying tale of a Black family brutally attacked and chased by their doppelgängers. Nyong’o — who played two roles — earned rave reviews, with many considering her a front-runner for the Oscars that year. When Nyong’o didn’t nab a nomination, many saw it as an egregious snub.
She also appeared in 2019's Little Monsters, a well-received horror/rom-com following a kindergarten teacher protecting her students from a sudden zombie outbreak.
Nyong’o broke down the allure horror has for her as an actress when talking to “This genre helps us exercise emotions that we are otherwise running away from a lot of the time, we don’t get permission to be openly scared in our real life,” Nyong’o told Variety at the New York premiere of “A Quiet Place.”
“I found myself coming [back] again and again to horror because of the roles that have been offered to me there. There is a heightened nature to horror that makes for a really interesting character to explore.”