Following The Success Of Weapons, There's An Idea For A Follow-Up, And I Would Absolutely Love For It To Happen

SPOILER WARNING: The following news article contains spoilers for Weapons. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!

Zach Cregger's Weapons is a film that deliciously and horrifically plays with multiple perspectives. There is Justine (Julia Garner), the teacher who has become a vortex of blame since 17 of her students disappeared. There's Archer (Josh Brolin), a father whose life is upended by his son going missing. There's Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), a cop and ex of Justine who commits an assault while on the job. There's James (Austin Abrams), the meth head thief whom Paul assaults. There's Marcus (Benedict Wong), the elementary school principal. And lastly, there's Alex (Cary Christopher), the only kid in Justine’s class who didn’t disappear.

Arguably, the only important character whose full story isn't told by the new horror movie is the tale of the sinister Aunt Gladys, brilliantly played by Amy Madigan – but an upcoming project may fill that gap.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, there have been discussions between New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. and Zach Cregger about a prequel movie that would explore the origins of Aunt Gladys. There presently isn't a script or a deal in place, but there was a chapter in the original screenplay for Weapons that the writer/director decided to excise to cut down the movie's length.

I can understand being of two minds about this news. On the one hand, Aunt Gladys is a terrifying villain in Weapons, and there is a risk that comes with a movie overexposing its villain. That being said, Zach Cregger does such an amazing job fleshing out all of the other characters in his horror epic, so one could effectively make the argument that Gladys got the short end of the stick. I love the film (as expressed in my five-star CinemaBlend review), but I also think that a prequel story could be told that adds a whole new layer to the experience.

Of course, it's not simply because of creative potential that this project is being discussed: it's because Weapons has come out of the gate as a big box office success story. The original script inspired a Hollywood bidding war, but acquisition and budget totaled just a reported $38 million (per Deadline), and it made $43.5 million in its first three days domestically ($70-plus million worldwide). Big ticket sales are always going to inspire sequel talks.

Exactly when Zach Cregger could potentially make a Weapons prequel is also a question that doesn't presently have an answer. While his latest film was only just released this past Friday, he is well into development of his Resident Evil reboot, which is scheduled to arrive in theaters next fall (September 18, 2025 to be specific). He has also written a sci-fi spec script titled Flood and has been working on a project called Henchman that is in the pipeline at DC Studios.

My fingers are crossed that this prequel will get made, and we'll keep you up to date with details about the potential project as new information becomes available.