According to Variety, Jodan Peele’s newest movie Nope found success at the top of the box office with its $44 million debut. The film starred Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer.

Nope fell between his 2017 movie Get Out ($33 million) and 2019 Us ($71 million). While it didn’t make the expected $50 million this week, the filmmaker is still at the beginning of his professional career as a filmmaker and doing more than okay. Nope

is Peele’s first project that has opened at No. 1 at the U.S. box office.

The film received an 83% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and almost all of the critics on the site could agree that the movie wasn’t like his first two, but Peele didn’t fail to entertain in the Sci-fi film.

According to Variety, Peele spent a pretty penny on Nope ($68 million), more than he did for his more successful movies ($4.5 million on Get Out and $20 million on Us). Many critics seemed to agree that Peele would profit more from the film through the word-of-mouth approach, which proved successful with his previous projects.

Nope achieved its goal of appealing to a more diverse audience, in which demographics show that 35% of those that purchased a ticket were white, 20% were Hispanic, 33% were Black and 8% were Asian. The movie also appealed to those between the ages of 18 to 34.

“We’re thrilled with the results this weekend,” Universal’s president of domestic distribution, Jim Orr, said. “Jordan Peele is an incredible talent. His films are layered and thought-provoking and ridiculously entertaining.”

As Sis2Sis previously reported, Nope hit theaters on July 22. The filmmaker explained to several outlets how he had a “love-hate” relationship with horror movies and that he was intrigued to watch them, yet they would keep him up at night. Creating them, however, placed him in control of his fears and made him feel braver.