Alden Ehrenreich Joins Zach Cregger’s ‘Weapons’

Alden Ehrenreich as Luke in ‘Fair Play.’ Cr. Courtesy of Netflix.

Preview:

Alden Ehrenreich is joining ‘Weapons’.
It’s the new horror movie from ‘Barbarian’s Zach Cregger.
Josh Brolin and Julia Garner are also in the cast.

Given that his breakout film, horror movie ‘Barbarian’ in 2022 generated huge buzz for its tricky, intense structure and went on to earn $45 million worldwide (which doesn’t sound like much, but was 10 times its production budget), it’s hardly surprising that writer/director Zach Cregger saw plenty of studio interest in his follow-up.

New Line nabbed the chance to make the new movie, called ‘Weapons’, and Cregger has been slowly building his cast, with Josh Brolin, Julia Garner and now Alden Ehrenreich aboard.

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An interrelated, multistory horror epic that revolves around the disappearance of high schoolers in a small town. Read the Plot

What’s the story of ‘Weapons’?

Justin Long in ‘Barbarian’. Photo: 20th Century Studios.

Neither Cregger nor New Line have been particularly forthcoming about a plot for ‘Weapons’ which we can understand –– after all, ‘Barbarian’, about an Airbnb stay that goes gruesomely wrong, worked because people didn’t know what to expect.

What we’ve learned so far is that ‘Weapons’ has been compared to Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Magnolia’, hinting at a web of interconnected stories and characters related to a central mystery.

The Hollywood Reporter has also heard that it will focus on “the disappearance of high schoolers in a small town.”

But whatever it turns out to be, the concept is clearly intriguing enough that studios and streamers offered to buy it sight unseen when the announcement came that Cregger had a new script in the works. New Line emerged triumphant, guaranteeing him a healthy payday, a guaranteed greenlight and final cut.

This is what New Line’s president and CCO, Richard Brener, said in a statement:

“Zach proved with ‘Barbarian’ that he can create a visceral theatrical experience for audiences and that he commands every tool in the filmmaker toolbelt. We couldn’t be happier that he, Roy Lee and Miri Yoon, and J.D. Lifshitz and Rafi Margules chose New Line to be the home of his next film, and hope it is the first of many to come.”

Cregger has been in pre-production on the movie, with the shoot scheduled to kick off in May.

Has the casting process for ‘Weapons’ been complicated?

Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure ‘Dune: Part Two,’ a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Niko Tavernise. Copyright: © 2023 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

You bet! Thanks to the film’s development needing to be delayed because of the writers and actors’ strikes, there has been some shifting on the ensemble front. While Pedro Pascal and ‘The Worst Person in the World’s Renate Reinsve were attached at one point, they’ve both since had to move on to other projects (Pascal is a particularly busy man with ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 underway and work on Marvels’ ‘The Fantastic Four’ on his To Do list).

Still, Brolin, Garner and now Ehrenreich are nothing to sniff at in terms of casting, and you know Cregger will have attracted others on the strength on his previous work.

Ehrenreich had a busy 2023, appearing in a variety of projects including ‘Cocaine Bear’, ‘Fair Play’ and a little movie called ‘Oppenheimer’.