Star Josh Brolin thinks that “great filmmakers” like Weapons director Zach Cregger are the cure for the number of bad streaming movies we are bombarded with today.
"Right now, with so much content, you’re just watching things on whatever streaming service you’re on, and you're just going, 'Fuck, why is this so boring, man? Why?' And just go to the next thing. It's all the same shit," said Brolin to Collider. "And then somebody not only takes the horror genre, but then fucks with it and then does something on the edge of absurdity, and it's sort of humorous, so it's keeping you off-[balance] enough for him to have an emotional impact, ultimately."
Perhaps one of the most unique original movies released this year, Weapons follows a community that is left shattered when a whole classroom full of children, bar one, go missing one night at 2:17 am. As the town of Maybrook looks for the missing kids, the movie focuses on a range of different characters and their reactions to the mystery.
According to Brolin, the "raw" characters and reactions all came from a very real place. "I know that the story came from something that was very emotional for Zach," added Brolin. "When I met with Zach after I read, I thought, a really well-designed script, he told me that every character is based off a certain reaction that he was having to a very traumatic event that happened to him. I thought that was really cool. He just personalized it for me."
Whatever Cregger injected into Weapons seems to be paying off, as the movie currently stands at 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, and pulled in over $70 million worldwide during opening weekend, according to BoxOfficeMojo, which is pretty impressive when compared to its budget of $38 million. In our Weapons review, we call the movie a “twisted fairytale” and “the best horror movie to come out of an already impressive year for the genre.”
Brolin’s experience being in a Cregger movie seems to have been so positive that the star told GamesRadar+ that he would likely work with the director again. "I think from here on out, you know, we'll see what Zach does. I have a tendency to work with directors more than once, so we'll see what the future holds," said the star.
Weapons also stars Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Benedict Wong, and Amy Madigan.
Weapons is out in theaters now. For more, check out our list of the best horror movies, or our guide to all the upcoming horror movies heading our way.
