Zach Cregger Debuts First Look at Horror Epic ’Weapons’ by Promising a “Twisty, Turny” Mystery
New Line unwrapped a sneak peek at in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
During the Warner Bros. studio presentation at , the division dedicated part of its time in the spotlight inside the Colosseum at Caesars Palace to showing off the highly-anticipated horror film from . The genre pic stars , Julia Garner, June Diane Raphael, Austin Abrams, Benedict Wong, Alden Ehrenreich and Amy Madigan, among others.
Cregger did the honors himself by coming to the stage but keeping his comments brief due to the spoiler nature of his “twisty and turny” movie. “The material we’re going to show is the tip of the iceberg,” said the filmmaker, adding that the script reinvents itself and unravels as it goes. He also made sure to mention that the teaser that played for CinemaCon attendees was exclusive and likely to not ever been seen by the public.
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The footage featured a voiceover by a young girl who reveals specific details about the story, which centers on the events that follow when the students in a classroom led by Garner’s character, a teacher, suddenly and mysteriously disappear. “Mrs. Gandy’s room was totally empty, and do you know why?” says the little girl. “Because the night before at 2:17 a.m., every kid woke up, got out of bed and walked downstairs into the dark. And they never came back.”
As the voiceover played, scenes showed children doing just that as they disappeared into the night. Parents and community members understandably respond with shock and anger as they are seen in a town hall-style meeting during which Brolin’s character yells, “I don’t understand at all. Why just her classroom, why only hers?” Another resident demands to know, “Where are our children?” A school administrator is seen later advising Garner’s teacher to keep some distance from the place as the investigation continues.
The footage continues by teasing that that’s the point the story really starts, keeping true to Cregger’s promise that there is much more to come. New Line Cinema boss Richard Brener had the duties of welcoming Cregger to the stage and asking him to explain his take on the story. He also chimed in by calling it “intriguing and unpredictable with a nice helping of batshit insane.”
Weapons marks the follow-up to Cregger’s breakout hit Barbarian. As previously reported, Cregger also wrote the top secret script, which is described as an interrelated, multistory horror epic that tonally is in the vein of Magnolia, the 1999 actor-crammed showcase from filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson. It centers on the disappearance of high school students in a small town.
The project is also a reunion of the Barbarian producing team as Cregger produced with Roy Lee of Vertigo and J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules of BoulderLight Pictures. Vertigo’s Miri Yoon also produces. It was picked up by New Line following an intense bidding war in January 2023.
CinemaCon, the annual gathering of cinema owners and Hollywood studios, is hosted in Las Vegas by the newly rebranded Cinema United, which for decades was known as the National Association of Theatre Owners. This year’s edition runs from March 31 to April 3.
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