After the critical and commercial success of his film Barbarian (2022), Cregger began working on the spec script for Weapons. It prompted a bidding war between several studios, with New Line Cinema emerging as the victor. Casting initially ran from May to July 2023 before several actors dropped out due to scheduling conflicts, as a result of production delays during the 2023 Hollywood labor disputes. Casting resumed in February 2024 and ended that May, when filming began in Atlanta, and wrapped that July.
Weapons was released in theaters in the United States on August 8, 2025, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film received critical acclaim, and was a box office success, grossing $269.1 million against a $38 million budget. Madigan's performance received particular praise, and she received nominations for a Golden Globe Award and Critics Choice Award. The New York Film Critics Circle awarded her its Best Supporting Actress prize.
Plot
Seventeen children from a third-grade classroom in the town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania, run out of their homes at 2:17 a.m. and disappear. Only one student, Alex Lilly, remained. Their teacher, Justine Gandy, is placed on leave amid suspicion that she is responsible for the disappearances. Archer Graff, the father of Matthew, one of the missing children, is particularly suspicious.
Justine relapses into alcoholism and has an affair with her married ex-boyfriend, police officer Paul Morgan. Concerned for Alex's well-being, Justine follows him home, discovering the windows of his house covered with newspaper and his parents sitting motionless inside. Justine stakes out Alex's house from her car, but falls asleep by nighttime. Alex's mother exits her home as if in a trance, enters the sleeping Justine's car and cuts off a lock of her hair. Archer grows frustrated with the police's minimal progress in the investigation and starts his own. Reviewing smart doorbell footage of Matthew and another child, he notices that their running paths converge to an unknown destination. Both Justine and Archer have nightmares about the missing children and a mysterious elderly woman.
While on patrol, Paul stops James, a homeless drug addict, from committing a burglary. While frisking James, Paul is pricked by one of his needles, causing Paul to assault him. When Paul realizes his car's dashcam caught the incident, he releases James to avoid retaliation. Later, James burgles Alex's house and accidentally discovers the missing children in the basement. He goes to the police station to report his findings and collect the $50,000 reward, but Paul spots and chases him. While fleeing through the woods, James notices the mysterious woman. When Paul catches him, James claims he knows where the children are. Paul and James arrive at Alex's house, which Paul enters to investigate, leaving James handcuffed in his car. Hours later, Paul comes out and, in a frenzy, drags James inside.
After Justine implores principal Marcus Miller to perform a wellness check on Alex, the mysterious woman arrives at the school and introduces herself as Alex's aunt, Gladys. She claims that she is helping care for Alex's family after his parents fell ill. When Marcus insists on performing a wellness check the next day, Gladys unexpectedly arrives at Marcus's home. She cuts off a lock of hair from Marcus's husband, Terry, and performs a bewitchment ritual on Marcus, who murders Terry at Gladys' command; she then sends him to kill Justine. Marcus finds her at a gas station arguing with Archer and attacks her; Archer defends Justine, who flees in her car. Marcus chases after her into traffic and is fatally run over. Archer later reconciles with Justine and shows her his findings. She deduces that the children were running toward Alex's house.
A flashback reveals that Alex's mother had invited Gladys, a distant relative, to her home, as she suffers from a mysterious illness and has nowhere else to go. Alex later comes home to discover that Gladys has bewitched his parents, threatening to make them kill themselves if Alex reveals her presence to others. Needing more victims, Gladys instructs Alex to gather a personal belonging from each of his classmates, promising to leave afterwards. After Alex complies, Gladys bewitches the children, summoning them to his basement to feed off their life forces.
In the present, realizing she has been discovered, Gladys tells Alex that they need to leave. Archer and Justine enter Alex's house and are attacked by the bewitched Paul and James. Justine manages to get Paul's gun and kills them both. Archer searches for Matthew in the basement, only to be bewitched by Gladys into attacking Justine. Alex evades his bewitched parents and replicates Gladys' spell, targeting her. The children chase after Gladys, who flees through the neighborhood until they catch her and tear her apart. Upon her death, her victims are freed from their bewitchment, though all but Archer remain catatonic. Justine finds Alex embracing his parents, while Archer carries Matthew home. A closing narration reveals that Alex moved out of town to live with a different aunt after his parents were institutionalized, and that the children returned home, with some having learned how to talk again.
Luke Speakman as Matthew Graff, Archer's son and one of Justine's missing students
Clayton Farris as Terry Miller, Marcus's husband
Scarlett Sher as the child narrator
Production
Zach Cregger auctioned the rights to the film's script for $38million.
Development
After the financial and critical success of his film Barbarian (2022), Zach Cregger began work on a new spec script titled Weapons. It has been described as a "horror epic" with a more "personal story" for the filmmaker, inspired by Paul Thomas Anderson's film Magnolia (1999), Denis Villeneuve's Prisoners (2013), and Jennifer Egan's novel A Visit from the Goon Squad.[6][7][8] Cregger was inspired to write the screenplay after the death of his close friend and collaborator, Trevor Moore.[9][10] A reference to a sketch written by Moore for The Whitest Kids U' Know was added into the finished script.[11] The screenplay entered the market on January 22, 2023, sparking interest by Netflix, New Line Cinema, TriStar Pictures and Universal Pictures.[12][13] According to Cregger, within 90 minutes of electronically distributing the script to the studios the following morning at 8:00, Michael De Luca, CEO of Warner Bros. Pictures, contacted him to close the deal.[7] New Line secured the rights within 24 hours after offering $38million to cover all costs, including production and salaries, with Cregger receiving $10million as writer, director, and producer and final cut privilege (pending test screening reactions to the film) in addition to a guaranteed theatrical release.[12] Universal offered $7 million less than Warner Bros.[14]Jordan Peele's company Monkeypaw Productions participated in the bidding war in conjunction with Universal. Peele dismissed longtime managers Joel Zadak and Peter Principato, the latter of whom was also Cregger's manager, after losing the opportunity.[15]
Cregger's CAA agent, Joe Mann, negotiated a $10 million upfront fee, of which Cregger deferred $2 million in return for 50 backend points on the film.[16]
Revisions to the script following the sale included having Archer apologize to his employees during a scene at a construction site as well as having Alex steal the name tags for Aunt Gladys.[17]
Casting
In May 2023, Pedro Pascal and Renate Reinsve were announced as part of the cast.[18][19] Cregger later confirmed that the original cast included Pascal and Reinsve alongside Brian Tyree Henry and Austin Abrams. Production was delayed by the 2023 Hollywood labor disputes, which created schedule conflicts for the four actors, particularly for Pascal who had several projects lined up.[20]
The importance of Gladys' character necessitated the correct casting for that role. Cregger recalled liking Madigan's performance in Field of Dreams (1989), and believed she would give a great performance after spotting her in a list of potential casting choices.[26] According to him, Madigan "saved" the film. When discussing the character, he stated that he gave her two options as to Gladys's origin: one where she was a regular person using witchcraft to prevent her dying from an incurable condition, and one where she was instead an immortal creature performing an approximate simulacrum of a human being, but that he did not ask her which one she chose.[27]
Filming
Principal photography took place in the Atlanta area in May 2024[22] and wrapped in July 2024.[28] The Maybrook Elementary School location was in Tucker, Georgia.[28] According to Time Out, on the busiest days of filming, 170 children were involved. Child labor coordinators were enlisted to keep the kids engaged outside of filming.[28] The gas station scenes were filmed over the course of three days at a BP gas station and convenience store in Covington, Georgia.[28]
Post-production
The film initially ended with a silent shot of Matthew. After it received negative reactions at a test screening, a voiceover from the child narrator was added.[29]
The soundtrack to Weapons was released by WaterTower Music on August 1, 2025. The soundtrack contains 36 tracks composed by Ryan Holladay, Hays Holladay, and the director Zach Cregger.[30][31] Additionally, the opening sequence of the film features the song "Beware of Darkness" by George Harrison[31][32] and the end credits feature the song "Under the Porch" by MGMT. The protagonist Justine also, briefly, plays the song "Gotta Get Up" by "Harry Nilsson" on her cell phone speaker.
Release
Weapons was originally scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States and Canada on January 16, 2026, before being rescheduled to be released on August 8, 2025, due to strong, positive reception from test screenings.[33][34] The earliest Thursday screenings were held at 2:17p.m., a reference to the film having 2:17a.m. as a major plot point.[35]
Weapons grossed $151.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $117.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $269.1 million.[3][4] In September 2025, Variety reported the film was expected to make a theatrical profit of at least $65million.[39]
In the United States and Canada, Weapons was released alongside Freakier Friday and Sketch, and was projected to gross $25–40 million from 3,200 theaters in its opening weekend.[14][2] It grossed $18.2 million on its first day, including $5.7 million from Thursday previews.[40][41] It went on to debut to $43.5 million, topping the box office and making Warner Bros. the first studio in history to have six consecutive films open at #1 with more than $40 million.[42][43] The film dropped only 44% in the second weekend, grossing $24.4 million while maintaining the top spot.[44] The film dropped to second place in its third weekend behind the sing-along version of KPop Demon Hunters, which grossed $19.2 million, while Weapons grossed $15.4 million.[45]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 93% of 385 critics' reviews are positive.The website's consensus reads: "Zach Cregger spins an expertly crafted yarn of terrifying mystery and thrilling intrigue in Weapons, a sophomore triumph that solidifies his status as a master of horror."[46]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 81 out of 100, based on 48 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[47] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed by PostTrak gave it an average 4 out of 5 stars, with 65% saying they would "definitely recommend" it.[48][49]
The San Francisco Chronicle dubbed Cregger a "true horror auteur".[50]Empire gave Weapons 5/5 stars, marveling that Cregger seemed to effortlessly turn parental grief over missing children into a crowd-pleasing subject.[51] Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com gave the film 3.5/4 stars and deemed it superior to Barbarian, "One of the greatest strengths of Cregger's ambitious script is its abject refusal to connect every dot in the manner that so much 'elevated horror' has done in recent years. Still, it's not overly difficult to read the inciting incident of Weapons as a school shooting allegory."[52]Variety praised the film, "Regardless of how you feel about the bittersweet ending (and many will happily embrace the movie's darkly comic bittersweet finale), Cregger has achieved something remarkable here, crafting a cruel and twisted bedtime story of the sort the Brothers Grimm might have spun—not the kid-friendly Disney version, mind you, but the kind where characters kill on command and audiences find it difficult to sleep afterward."[53]
Tim Grierson of Screen Daily felt the finale was "superbly orchestrated" and praised Cregger for "answering the riddles he has teased throughout the runtime".[54] Lisa Wright of London Evening Standard stated that "if you enjoyed the bonkers roll out of The Substance, chances are you'll like this. It all makes for a winning watch, with more layers than your average scare fest and a twinkle in its evil eye."[55] Charles Pulliam-Moore of The Verge praised the film's meditation on "how communities often conjure up convenient boogeymen to blame, rather than confronting the things that actually endanger children."[56]
Tom Jorgensen of IGN scored the film 9/10 and called it "a righteous, fully actualized genre-bender in which writer-director Zach Cregger hones Barbarian's blend of unbearable tension and dark humor to a new level of razor-sharpness."[57] The Associated Press gave the film 4.5/5 stars, "If Barbarian came out of left field three years ago and heralded an exciting new voice in filmmaking, Weapons doesn't disappoint but it doesn't have the advantage of surprise."[58]
In her review for The New York Times, Manohla Dargis felt Cregger's structure was not completely successful, "the segmentation and overlapping just feel like a whole lot of delay tactics."[59] William Bibbiani of TheWrap praised the cinematography for finding "the eeriest camera angle in damn near every scene, whether it's overtly shocking or insidiously banal", but he found the ending contrived, especially given how Cregger "invited us to ponder more powerful possibilities for over an hour before tipping his hand."[60]
Cregger discussed a potential sequel to Weapons in an interview with Variety, saying he was excited about the idea but wanted to make other films first.[77] In an interview with Fangoria, he said he had been discussing a concept for a prequel about Aunt Gladys with Warner Bros.[78]
↑Newspapers, LEE CLARK ZUMPE, Tampa Bay (October 16, 2025). "Scream-o-rama cinema 2025". TBNweekly. Retrieved October 16, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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