Jordan Peele’s New Movie Sets Disappointing Rotten Tomatoes Record

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As of this writing, Him has a critics score of 34% on Rotten Tomatoes from 47 submitted reviews. That makes the football-themed psychological thriller the lowest-rated movie of Peele’s career. It’s only the second feature he’s been involved with to have a rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes (the first being 2012’s Wanderlust, in which Peele portrayed the character Rodney). Him is the only movie in Peele’s time behind the camera to have a score below 72%.

Can Him Overcome Negative Reviews at the Box Office?

Image Courtesy of Universal Pictures

Horror has been enjoying a banner year in 2025, with the likes of Sinners, Final Destination Bloodlines, Weapons, and The Conjuring: Last Rites all exceeding box office expectations. In many of those cases, word of mouth played a sizable role in boosting commercial prospects. Reception was a boon for original works like Sinners and Weapons, which received widespread praise that made them must-see events not just for horror fans, but general moviegoers. Him is unlikely to get a similar boost as it heads to theaters in its opening weekend.

Though reviews have pointed out some highlights (most notably, Marlon Wayans’ performance as a veteran quarterback), many consider Him to be a messy film that doesn’t successfully execute its ideas. On paper, a psychological thriller about a young football star that deals with the dangers of obsession and hero worship has the potential to be very interesting, but it sounds like Him falls short of achieving its goals, never digging deeper into its themes the way other films produced and directed by Peele have. Taking into consideration the competition Him is facing, the word of mouth could hurt its odds of making a box office splash.

There have been plenty of horror/thriller titles playing over the past several weeks. The marketplace is so crowded with those that even an acclaimed Stephen King adaptation faced an uphill climb. If Him was generating positive responses, Peele’s name would likely be enough to bring people to the theater, but now it’s likely to be overshadowed. Fortunately, Him was relatively inexpensive to make with a production budget of just $27 million, so it doesn’t need to break the bank to become profitable. If it gets off to a decent enough start this weekend, it’ll likely be in okay shape. The reviews will probably prevent Him from breaking out as a major crossover hit, especially since there’s some bigger titles on the way this fall.

Though horror has had a great year, Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions ironically has had a rough stretch. It lost the bidding war for the Weapons script, and then Peele watched that movie continue what’s been a record-breaking year for Warner Bros. Peele’s upcoming fourth directorial effort has also been pulled from Universal’s release schedule because it needs more time to develop. Him was an opportunity for Monkeypaw and Peele to salvage 2025, but it became a rare misstep. Hopefully, Peele’s next project comes to fruition quickly and gets him back on track.

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