Jordan Peele's 'Nope' Features a Theme Park, a Horse Ranch, and Other Locations

Spoiler alert: this article contains spoilers for Jordan Peele's latest horror-thriller, Nope.

On the surface, Nope tells the story of a brother-sister duo ready to go the extra mile to keep the family business alive. Having recently lost their father, Otis Haywood Sr. (Keith David), OJ (Daniel Kaluuya), and Emerald (Keke Palmer) prepare to do what it takes to promote the historic horse ranch. Where is the Haywood Ranch? Where was Nope filmed?

Paying homage to iconic films like Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Eadweard Muybridge's 1878 short, The Horse in Motion, Nope tells the hair-raising tale of a horse ranch that becomes the favorite hunting ground of a UFO-like entity. Spoiler: the UFO is a picky eater.

It doesn't enjoy consuming horse statues, though it sometimes gushes blood. Is the real-life equivalent of the Haywood Ranch open to visitors? Where was Nope filmed?

The principal photography took place between June 2021 and November 2021, per PHASR MEDIA. The majority of the shooting likely ocurred at the Firestone Ranch in Agua Dulce, Santa Clarita, Calif., which moonlighted as the Haywood Ranch. Unlike action-thrillers set in multiple locations across the globe, the filming of Nope didn't require the crew to cross the U.S. border. In fact, the filming took place entirely in California, per The Cinemaholic.

Notable filming locations also include the theme park referred to as Jupiter's Claim in Nope. Jupiter's Claim is the brainchild of production designer Ruth DeJong. Built exclusively for the sake of the shooting, Jupiter's Claim was carefully disassembled after the crew finished its tasks. It can, however, be visited virtually.

After the shooting wrapped, Jupiter's Claim was relocated to the Universal Studios Hollywood in Universal City, Calif. Universal Studios Hollywood opened the spectacle to visitors on Friday, 22 July 2022, the day Nope was released, which marks a first for the iconic studio complex. In other words, eager Nope fans are now able to trawl the Gold Rush-themed park for cues.

A crossover between a horror-thriller and a love letter to movie-making, Nope explores the ranch-owning siblings' attempts to defeat the supernatural entity that killed their father. Instead of a slightly more predictable antagonist, OJ and Emerald are up against a UFO that threatens to destroy their way of life while also bearing the promise of drumming up publicity for the ranch.

"I think people might expect for a villain to emerge in a more clear way in this film, and it doesn't quite happen like that," Jordan told GQ. "The villain is this otherworldly threat. And it is also something that everyone has in common — everyone's relationship to the spectacle."

"I wrote [the film] trapped inside and so I knew I wanted to make something that was about the sky. I knew the world would want to be outside and at the same time, I knew we had this newfound fear from this trauma, from this time of what it meant to go outside," he added. "Can we go outside? So I slipped some of that stuff in."

Nope is available in cinemas now.