Jordan Peele, the former half of Key & Peele and the creative mind behind this year’s box office hit Get Out, hasn’t been vacationing just because his film has officially ended its long run in cinemas. In the midst of all the hype for Get Out, it was rumoured that he was being courted by Warner Bros. to direct the live-action remake of Akira. He also revealed that he wants to make at least four more social thrillers in the next ten years, and I graciously provided him with some ideas. And now he’s on diaper duty with a newborn son. But as of Wednesday, we know exactly what’s next for Peele, and I’m so ready for it.
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According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jordan Peele is working on a new television series that he will executive produce called The Hunt. It’s set in the 1970s and follows a group of vigilantes who hunt and kill Nazis. These manhunters are being described as “diverse,” while the Nazis in question have escaped persecution with the help of the United States government and assimilated into American culture. It already sounds like the follow up to Handmaid’s Tale that we didn’t even know we needed and I’m more than ready to set my DVR or add it to my watch list.
Peele’s new drama will be written by David Weil, who will also executive produce it alongside him. It hasn’t been picked up by a network yet, but apparently the bidding war has already started. A bunch of rich white dudes at networks bidding over a show created by a Black man is just another way that moments from Get Out continue to spill out into the real world. But this time it’s for a damn good cause.
After the horrific events of Charlottesville, VA — where neo-Nazis joined ranks with other white supremacists for a Unite the Rally in protest of the possible removal of a statue of a Confederate Army general and their fear of being “replaced” by Jews and people of color — that left three people dead, Nazi’s have once again set up shop in American consciousness. And while many have spoken out against their hate-filled rhetoric, there are others who are just as loud about the need to humanise them as well. I say, fuck them.
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And I’m glad Peele, at least, is with me. The Hunt feels like a perfect response to the campaign to humanise those who believe in the natural superiority of one group over the other. Yeah yeah, I know: killing Nazis, neo or otherwise, makes us no better than them. But in a fictional world created by Peele — ironically before Charlottesville — it sounds fucking awesome.