Get Out nets Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars

By Lauren Victoria Burke
Contributing Writer

(NNPA Newswire) — “I just won an Oscar. WTF?!?” Jordan Peele tweeted after being handed the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Get Out during the 90th annual Academy Awards. The film made $255 million at the box office on a $4.5 million budget.

Director Jordan Peele, 39, a comedian and writer, made history as the first African American to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. There has only been three African-American nominees in the category over 90 years.

JORDAN PEELE

“I stopped writing this movie about 20 times… I thought it was impossible. I thought it wasn’t going to work,” Peele remarked after winning. Not only was Get Out a massive financial success, the film’s “sunken place” is now a part of the American pop culture lexicon.

Get Out received four Oscar nominations in total including a nomination for Daniel Kaluuya for Best Actor. Gary Oldman won the Best Actor award for his performance as Winston Churchill in The Darkest Hour.

Keegan-Michael Key, who starred with Peele in the Comedy Central show “Key & Peele,” was photographed at an Oscar party jumping up and down after his comedy partner won the Oscar.

“An award like this is much bigger than me. This is about paying it forward to the young people, who might not believe they can achieve the highest honor in whatever craft they want to push for,” Peele said as he held his Oscar and spoke with reporters after his win.

“I feel proud to be at the beginning of a movement, where I feel like the best films in every genre are being brought to me by my fellow Black directors.”

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent journalist and writer for NNPA as well as a political analyst and communications strategist. She may be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on Twitter at @LVBurke.

This article originally published in the March 12, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.