6 days Ago By Michael Hein
Warner Bros. kicked off the marketing campaign for Weapons in style on Monday, posting teaser on a newly-created website for the fictional outlet Maybrook News. It sets up the plot of this new horror movie by Zach Cregger — 17 children have gone missing in the small town of Maybrook, and apparently, they’ve disappeared on their own accord.
The included images come from home security cameras, and show that the children all left at 2:17 a.m. The site has another story on it, and it’s not just padding — it describes the mystery of Cregger’s last movie, Barbarian, implying that these two take place in the same continuity.
The promotional site commits to its local news-style pretense, saying that these eerie simultaneous disappearances have “shaken the community to its core. It promises that an investigation is underway, and while there are no signs of force, these are not being treated as runaways, either. The second article references Barbarian with the headline “Underground Prison Discovered in Rental Home.
”That article essentially lays out the plot of Barbarian in the form of a news article, and while we know Barbarian was set in Detroit, Weapons is reportedly set in a small town in Florida. That makes it hard to speculate about what connection these two movies may have, but even if it’s only an Easter egg it’s a neat way to hook fans.[RELATED: 10 Movie Twists That Messed Me Up]Cregger is best known for his work with the comedy troup The Whitest Kids U’ Know, including its sketch comedy TV show on FUSE and IFC.
Cregger then worked on three sitcoms over the years that followed, which made his transition to horror all the more surprising. He wrote and directed Barbarian, which was critically acclaimed when it debuted in 2022. The movie was about the discovery of a secret subterranean torture chamber under a dilapidated suburban home, so it’s no surprise it would have made headlines on the other side of the country in Maybrook, Florida.
Cregger wrote the screenplay for Weapons as well. The story reportedly involves witchcraft and “blood rituals,” as well as police corruption and religious abuse. It stars Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreih, and Benedict Wong, among others.
Weapons was moved up on Warner Bros. schedule, and is now slated to hit theaters on August 8th, 2025. At the time of this writing, Barbarian is not available on any subscription-based streamers, but it is available to rent or purchase digitally on PVOD stores.
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