Weapons: Barbarian director’s new horror film unveils new images and character information

Barbarian (watch it HERE) writer/director Zach Cregger has assembled a strong cast for his mysterious horror project called Weapons, including Julia Garner (Ozark), Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo), Benedict Wong (Doctor Strange), Amy Madigan (Antlers), Austin Abrams (Euphoria), June Diane Raphael (Grace and Frankie), and Cary Christopher (Days of Our Lives)… and we’re going to have the chance to see that cast face the horrors Cregger has conjured up when Weapons reaches theatres on August 8th. With that date swiftly approaching, Cregger has shared a few new images with Entertainment Weekly and revealed some character details! The images can be seen at the bottom of this article.

Most details about Weapons are shrouded in mystery. It has been said that it’s “an interrelated, multistory horror epic” that’s tonally in the vein of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, and the story revolves around the disappearance of elementary school kids in a small town. Cregger, who wrote the script without an outline and let the story evolve as he went, told Entertainment Weekly that the mystery of the missing children “is going to propel you through at least half of the movie, but that is not the movie. The movie will fork and change and reinvent and go in new places. It doesn’t abandon that question, believe me, but that’s not the whole movie at all. By the midpoint, we’ve moved on to way crazier s— than that.“

He shared that Garner’s character is Justine Gandy, “a teacher at Maybrook Elementary who shows up to work one morning to find her entire class — except one student — is missing. Security footage taken from neighboring homes shows the absent kids fleeing into the darkness in the dead of night, all running with their arms outstretched in the same rigid formation.” Brolin’s character is Archer Graff, “the father of one of the missing, who finds it suspicious that only children from Justine’s class disappeared.” Ehrenreich “sports a mustache as a local police officer with a very complicated relationship to Mrs. Gandy.” Cregger noted that Magnolia influenced his new movie in a lot of ways, with Ehrenreich’s mustache being a tribute to John C. Reilly’s mustache in Magnolia. Other similarities: “It’s melancholy, yet it has comedic situations. The sky is regularly cloudy, yet the scenes are colorful. It’s a sprawling ensemble, but the characters are fully developed in their own worlds.” Cregger said, “I just like that kind of unapologetic, ‘This is an epic.’ I love that movie. I love that kind of bold scale. It gave me permission when I was writing this to shoot for the stars and make it an epic. I wanted a horror epic, and so I tried to do that.” Because he was shooting for the stars, Weapons is bigger, weirder, twistier, and more creatively ambitious than Barbarian.

Cregger produced the film with Roy Lee and Miri Yoon of Vertigo and J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules of BoulderLight Pictures. At one point, Pedro Pascal of The Last of Us was set to star in the film with and Renate Reinsve of The Worst Person in the World. Pascal had to leave the project so he could star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe reboot of Fantastic Four (which Garner also has a role in) instead, and it appears that Reinsve followed him out the door.

New Line Cinema went all-in on a partnership with Cregger and Barbarian’s producers at BoulderLight Pictures. New Line came out the winner in a bidding war over Weapons, paying Cregger a sum in the eight figure range to make this movie. When they won the bidding war over the rights, New Line’s president and CCO Richard Brener released the following statement: “Zach proved with Barbarian that he can create a visceral theatrical experience for audiences and that he commands every tool in the filmmaker toolbelt. We couldn’t be happier that he, Roy [Lee] and Miri [Yoon], and J.D. [Lifshitz]and Rafi [Margules] chose New Line to be the home of his next film, and hope it is the first of many to come.“

Weapons has been rated R for strong bloody violence and grisly images, language throughout, some sexual content and drug use. Are you looking forward to the movie? Check out the images below, then let us know by leaving a comment.

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