Posted in: Movies, Warner Bros | Tagged: weapons, Zach Cregger

Weapons: Zach Cregger Had The Prequel Idea "Kind Of In My Pocket"

Weapons writer and director Zach Cregger confirms that the prequel report is real and the idea was "kind of in my pocket before the movie came out."

When Weapons opened last month to massive critical and commercial acclaim, the same thing that happens every time a horror movie does well started. It used to be that all anyone wanted out of these films was sequels, but as the years go by, it seems like studios become more and more interested in prequels of all things. We learned about the idea of a Weapons prequel film not long after the movie was released, but it was just reporting, and no one confirmed anything. Director and writer Zach Cregger recently spoke to Fangoria and confirmed that the reports of a prequel were real and he was talking to Warner Bros. about it.

"It is real, and I've been talking to Warner Bros. about it. There's a story, and I'm pretty excited about it. It's not bullshit … I was ready, I had it kind of in my pocket before the movie came out," Cregger said.

Prequels are hard to pull off in any genre, but for horror, they are antithetical to the concept of the entire genre. The monster always gets less scary the more we see of it, and the more we learn about something, the less scary it becomes. Lionsgate is currently learning that lesson the hard way with its Strangers movies and how no one seems to like them. The thing that made those movies frightening was that we didn't know anything about these people, including their motivations, and that is where the horror comes from. The terror of the unknown so prequels in horror that actually work and don't make everything around them less scary are few and far between.

The Conjuring managed to do it with Anabelle: Creation, but the doll was never really the focus of those films. Ti West pulled this off with Pearl, but he wrote that movie while shooting X, so the connection between the two felt more natural. It sounds like Cregger might have done what West did, but didn't write the entire script and shoot the film. If he were writing and shooting most of the Weapons with the idea of this prequel being a thing that could exist, maybe it wouldn't diminish Amy Madigan's buckwild performance.

Weapons: Summary, Release Date, Cast List

From New Line Cinema and Zach Cregger, the wholly original mind behind Barbarian, comes a new horror/thriller: Weapons.

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.

The film stars Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, with Benedict Wong, and Amy Madigan.

Cregger directs from his own screenplay, and also produces alongside Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules, with Michelle Morrissey and Josh Brolin executive producing. The filmmaker's creative team behind the camera includes director of photography Larkin Seiple, production designer Tom Hammock, editor Joe Murphy and costume designer Trish Summerville. The music is by Ryan Holladay, Hays Holladay and Zach Cregger.

New Line Cinema Presents A Subconscious/Vertigo Entertainment/BoulderLight Pictures Production, A Zach Cregger Film, Weapons. It will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures and released in theaters and IMAX nationwide on August 8, 2025, and internationally beginning on August 6, 2025.

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