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- Jordan, I want to go back to the months

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preceding Blumhouse and
Universal agreeing to work

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with you to make "Get Out."

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If you hadn't partnered with them,

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what route would have taken
to get that movie made?

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- It's hard to say.

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Look, I mean, we, you know, truth be told,

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we were with QC Entertainment,

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brought us to Blumhouse and Universal,

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and it's hard to know where,
what would have happened,

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where it would have ended up.

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What I do know is, once
Blumhouse and Universal

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came on board and, by the way,

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we shopped it around,
because we were looking

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for a partnership, we
were looking for a studio,

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shopped around, many people
just didn't get it, the script,

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just didn't understand it.

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We got some really,

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some pretty rude feedback,
to be honest, and--

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- What as the rudest thing you'd heard?

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- You know, I think I,
I think there's a letter

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from someone who won't be named,

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where they called it stupid,

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said this is, this is
stupid, it won't work.

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I just remember that, that
word stupid coming out.

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I'm like, stupid?

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Come on, it's a lot of
things, it's not stupid, they,

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you know, but, we
brought it to some places

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who were kind of looking for a nice,

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straight down the middle horror movie

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that they could, great, do for, you know,

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five million dollars and then it would,

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it would check all the boxes,

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and Blumhouse, Universal, and QC,

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this partnership, I think,

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as I did, by the way, saw it as a risk,

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but a worthy risk to invest
not, not too much money in,

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and then, and so the real,

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what Universal did for me was

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really increase this
chance that it could get,

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be seen in a theater,

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or the crazy scenario of
getting a wide release,

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of sort of being a small
film that breaks through

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and is, is one of the,

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you know, is one of these sort of,

46
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these Blumhouse projects
that sort of breaks through,

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and there was awhile there
where even the movie was made,

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and everybody knew it was good,

49
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but I think there was
still a little bit like,

50
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okay, I mean, this is, this is a big,

51
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it's a big move, it's a big swing,

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and it seems like it's working because

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everybody that sees it
gets it, and yet there's...

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I mean, there is a big unknown

55
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in terms of how this could
be, how this could land

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in certain places and whatnot,

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and so anyway,

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they didn't have to sort
of step over that boundary

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of saying, look, we're
gonna take a movie where

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all the white people are evil,

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and a black, the black
lead goes through misery

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for, you know, for two hours.

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We're gonna put that out there
and we're gonna commit to it

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and we're gonna market it.

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- How do you think the industry is doing?

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I feel like the success
of "Get Out" and "Us"

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has in some ways emboldened
the people who want to sort of

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put their hands over their ears

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or their hands over their eyes to say,

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oh, mission accomplished, you know,

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Hollywood is diverse now.

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Where are we in your mind?

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- Well, you know, I think mission,

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you know, I can't quite
see what would make me

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say, you know, ever say
mission is accomplished.

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No, you know I've, obviously there's a,

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there's still big, a
problem with diversity,

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and I've definitely
seen we've sort of moved

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in the right direction,
and we continue to move

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in the right direction.

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In terms of, in terms of on
screen in front of camera,

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and behind the camera,

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there's still a lot of work to go,

84
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but you know, I was,

85
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one of the, one of the
movies that really signaled

86
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that there was, something was changing,

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for me, was "Straight Outta Compton,"

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because of how successful
it was and how good it was

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and how committed to the,

90
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how committed to that story it was,

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but when I came into pitch "Us,"

92
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I remember, you know,
I pitch with a lot of

93
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sort of comparisons as
to why this will work

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and how to market this, and
I would say things like,

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well, you can think of
this in terms of sort of,

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there's the "Poltergeist"
sort of thing going on here.

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There's something that
appeals on the mass scale

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of a zombie film, but
there's also something

99
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more intimate and
personal about this thing,

100
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and sort of pitching all these ways,

101
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and one of the last things
I got to in that pitch was,

102
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quite frankly, I've
never seen a horror movie

103
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with a black family at the center of it,

104
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and it not being a movie
about them being black,

105
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but just that, we've seen
the white family go through

106
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all manner of haunted house.

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(audience laughing)

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And stay way longer than they should have.

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So, let's make a movie
where a black family

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gets the fuck out immediately.

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(audience laughing)

112
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No, but just, just that
we've crossed a threshold

113
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where that is a selling
point in the industry,

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at the very least, in
this office that I was in,

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and that is,

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that's just a wonderful feeling,

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to be one of the few

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to be able to sort of break through

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and to begin to engage the industry

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with these kinds of stories.

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So, I'm very optimistic,
but we have a lot of work.