New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. have previously released a teaser trailer for Zach Cregger’s “Weapons,” a follow-up to his widely popular original horror film “Barbarian,” and focuses on a town dealing with a group of school children that vanish over the same night. We can now share some new first-look still images posted by Entertainment Weekly, which showcase stars Josh Brolin (“Outer Range”) and Julia Garner (“Ozark,” “The Fantastic Four: First Steps”) in character for the mysterious genre flick.
While chatting with EW, Cregger was quick to point out the differences between “Barbarian” and the new film, “[‘Weapons’] is more ambitious in almost every way. I don’t just mean in terms of the budget, but I just mean creatively,” the filmmaker explained when trying to compare the two films with each other.
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“The story is weirder and it’s twistier and it’s bigger. I have way more actors to fit into this thing. The set pieces are definitely bigger. It’s just a bigger, weirder movie than ‘Barbarian’ is.” Adding, “I promise you,” Cregger said, “when you watch it, you will agree with me. It is.”
“That mystery is going to propel you through at least half of the movie, but that is not the movie,” the filmmaker said of the missing children plot point not being the main gist of the pic and more of an entry point for audiences to allow for something even “crazier” that is going on. “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.”
An official logline for “Weapons” from Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema:
When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.
Alden Ehrenreich (“Solo: A Star Wars Story”), Cary Christopher (“Spider-Noir”), Benedict Wong (“Prometheus”), and Amy Madigan (“Field of Dreams”) also have roles in the pic.
After the impressive response to Ryan Coogler‘s “Sinners,” Warner Bros. likely will be able to strike with yet another high-concept creator-driven genre film, and hopefully, audiences will embrace the original film in a similar way.
Creggor isn’t slowing down as he’s about to begin shooting a faithful remake of the hit zombie-survival horror video game, “Resident Evil” for Sony Pictures with actor Austin Abrams (“Wolfs,” “Euphoria”) attached to star, who is another name among the cast of “Weapons.”
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You can check out those first-look images of “Weapons” posted by EW below, and the film is going to be gracing theaters on August 8.