Zach Cregger, the writer/director of last year’s horror hit Barbarian, has snagged another win, this time landing the internet’s daddy, Pedro Pascal, as the star of his next film. Per Deadline, Pascal will lead New Line Cinema’s Weapons, which Cregger will also produce alongside his Barbarian producing team: Vertigo’s Roy Lee and BoulderLight Pictures’ J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules. Miri Yoon of Vertigo will also produce.
In addition to being a rare horror movie that’s actually scary, Barbarian opened at #1 at the box office in 2022 and ultimately grossed 10 times its production budget. It also earned great reviews and sits at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, though some of those critics may have been watching through their fingers.
Meanwhile, Pascal has had great success with the recent HBO series The Last of Us and the wayward-but-still-good third season of The Mandalorian. Beyond that, Pascal has three features coming up: Ethan Coen’s film Drive-Away Dolls, Anna Boden’s upcoming Freaky Tales, and Ridley Scott’s totally necessary Gladiator sequel, which is about to go into production.
There’s no word yet on the storyline or even the genre of Weapons, so fans hoping Cregger would stick to horror will have to wait a bit longer to see exactly what he has in store. Perhaps he’s pivoting to action or even a political thriller, given the title. Let’s just hope the ongoing writers’ strike doesn’t hinder development too drastically. Look forward to Weapons going into production whenever the WGA is satisfied that Cregger himself wrote it and not ChatGPT.