Zach Cregger is citing how Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 drama “Magnolia” inspired his “horror epic,” “Weapons.” Sure, it may seem like the iconic star-studded “Magnolia” doesn’t have much in common with Cregger’s (albeit secretive) sophomore film “Weapons,” but the writer/director is crediting how “Magnolia” gave him “permission” to think big.
“I just like that kind of unapologetic, ‘This is an epic,’” Cregger told Entertainment Weekly of the “Magnolia” effect. “I love that movie. I love that kind of bold scale. It gave me permission when I was writing this to shoot for the stars and make it an epic. I wanted a horror epic, and so I tried to do that.”
Even the aesthetic choices in “Weapons” have nods to PTA’s masterpiece: Cregger said that “Weapons” star Alden Ehrenreich has a mustache for the role as a reference to John C. Reilly’s “Magnolia” look.
While little is known about Cregger’s latest horror/thriller, New Line Cinema chief Richard Brenner described the film as being “batshit insane.” Cregger agrees with that categorization, saying that the mystery of missing kids will “propel you through at least half of the movie, but that is not the movie.” He teased, “The movie will fork and change and reinvent and go in new places. It doesn’t abandon that question, believe me, but that’s not the whole movie at all. By the midpoint, we’ve moved on to way crazier shit than that.”
Cregger added that the bidding war for “Weapons” after his 2022 debut hit “Barbarian” put the pressure on to deliver. “It was stressful,” Cregger said. “People might think from the outside looking in that I was flinging dollar bills in the air and calling enemies and saying, ‘Fuck you.’ The truth of the matter was it’s a very high-pressure thing, and people were getting pissed and it was stressful. I didn’t totally get to unclench and appreciate what happened until maybe a week later when the dust settled and the adrenaline subsided.”
He continued that compared to “Barbarian,” “Weapons” is “more ambitious in almost every way.”
“I don’t just mean in terms of the budget, but I just mean creatively,” Cregger said. “The story is weirder and it’s twistier and it’s bigger. I have way more actors to fit into this thing. The set pieces are definitely bigger. It’s just a bigger, weirder movie than ‘Barbarian’ is.”
“Weapons” premieres August 8 in theaters from Warner Bros. Pictures.
