Jordan Peele scared the bejesus out of moviegoers with his Academy Award-winning film,Get Out. Now, he’s planning on taking his penchant for spine-tingling suspension to the small screen as the new host and narrator of The Twilight Zone.
CBS announced Peele will front a revival of the classic TV show, which originally aired between 1959 and 1964. The show, which was created and narrated by Rod Serling, not only creeped audiences out, but regularly made them think about the world around them.
A fan of both the show and Serling’s work, Peele originally didn’t feel like he was up to to the task of bringing back such an iconic show.
“I was terrified,” Peele told Variety earlier this year. “Why would I ever jump into the most established, pristine shoes in all of the genre? I could rip Twilight Zone off and call it something different and not be compared to Rod Serling. So I stepped away from it. And then several months later I got another call.”
Ultimately, Peele decided to partner with producer Simon Kinberg to give the show a try.
“If we approach it without ego and sort of bow to Serling, that will hopefully suffice for our fellow Twilight Zone fans, but also bring back a show that I think is needed right now,” he explained. “Because it’s a show that has always helped us look at ourselves, hold a mirror up to society.”
Since the success of Get Out, which was a commentary on race in America, Peele said he had a whole series of “social thrillers” he wanted to roll out over the next decade.
While he works on his next feature film project, Us, it looks like this Twilight Zone reboot will also be yet another opportunity for Peele to give viewers something to think — and more importantly, talk — about.