Like with any other movie genre, it is a hit-and-miss situation with horror films. We don’t get to know what the audiences will go for until a certain film hits the theaters and/or streaming services. So when actor/director/producer Zach Cregger got less than $40 million to come up with Weapons (average for a major Hollywood film before COVID was $65 million) it didn’t seem that originally Warner Bros. was hoping much from the film.
Yet, as soon as this horror/psych thriller hit the theaters, it became a huge hit currently hitting $50 million profit in the U.S. and over $260 million worldwide. So it was no wonder that the huge audience that the film garnered immediately clamored for a sequel or a prequel. And after a series of suggestions, Cregger has now officially confirmed that a prequel focusing on Aunt Gladys (brilliantly played by Amy Madigan), one of film’s main characters and its key enigma will get a prequel!
As Cregger explained, he actually had this prequel in mind before Weapons became a big hit. “I was ready,” Cregger said. “I had it kind of in my pocket before the movie came out.” At the moment, the only sure thing is that the prequel story will focus on Aunt Gladys, her background and how she became the person (thing?) that she was in Weapons.
What is Weapons about and what might we expect to see in the prequel?
One dark night, at exactly 2:17 A.M. all the kids from a third-grade classroom suddenly and mysteriously disappear from their bedrooms. Only one kid, Alex (Cary Christopher), remains in the classroom and is the only person that really knows what happened. And it turns out that it is Aunt Gladys that just might be behind the whole mystery.
Weapons runs as a non-linear story that presents different and often opposing perspectives of the main protagonists, with only one viewpoint missing—that of Aunt Gladys. And that is where the prequel is supposed to tell the story. As it turns out, supporting Cregger’s claim that he had a prequel already in mind is that Gladys’ story was supposed to be part of the original film (it was in the original draft), but had to be scrapped as the film would be a bit too long.
So, what can we expect to see in the Aunt Gladys prequel? It is a bit hard to say at the moment, as there is no script yet, nor is it known who will return to the project (including whether Amy Madigan will be Aunt Gladys again) or when the filming will begin (Cregger is currently working on a Resident Evil reboot).
Yet, there are a number of possibilities. We might get to know how Aunt Gladys acquired her powers and whether she was a normal human that wanted eternal life, or whether she found a way to delay her death. As Cregger told Vanity Fair, he gave Madigan two possibilities: “one being a person learning magic to heal herself from a deathly illness, the other being a creature attempting to mimic ordinary human behavior.” All the fans Weapons has garnered in such a short time are anxiously waiting for the answers.
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