Zach Cregger's ‘Weapons' Sets January 2026 Release

UPDATE: “Weapons” has officially been dated for January 16, 2026, release.

UPDATE: Hot off his supporting turn in Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” Alden Ehrenreich has joined the cast of “Weapons.” Good for him. Ehrenreich is a talented actor who didn’t deserve to have a Star Wars dud (“Solo”) destroy his acting career.

EARLIER: After many delays, due to last year’s strikes, and multiple bouts of recasting, Zach Cregger’s “Weapons” is supposed to start production in mid-May, according to THR.

Julia Garner has now been added to the cast in the lead role. If I had to guess, Garner is replacing Renate Reinsve who is supposed to be shooting Joachim Trier’s next film in early summer. She joins a cast that includes Josh Brolin, Brian Tyree Henry, Tom Burke, Austin Abrams and June Diane Raphael.

Last Spring, “Weapons” was all the buzz in Hollywood. Warner Bros and New Line won a bidding war, that involved multiple other studios, and snatched up the rights for an 8-figure sum. They are hoping that Cregger becomes a significant horror name in the coming years, in the same vein as Peele, Aster and Eggers.

The way Cregger shopped the script around was highly unusual. A producer tells me that the fact he had already established himself with “Barbarian” and still managed to get a bidding war going for his next film is a promising indicator of just how good the script for “Weapons” must be.

That’s what’s so promising and buzzy about “Weapons.” It resulted in a spec script bidding war. Cregger already had a hit film by then (“Barbarian”). Spec script bidding wars tend to occur when an unknown screenwriter makes significant money off the strength of the script alone. It’s not usually something that happens with a filmmaker who is already established, let alone had a recent hit movie.

In a nutshell, Cregger had already proven himself with “Barbarian” and he presented a script that every studio head who read it thought was phenomenal and wanted to get attached to getting it made.

We don’t know much about “Weapons,” just that it would revolve around “witchcraft and missing children” and would be told via multi and inter-related storylines. Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia” is reported to be an influence. The screenplay is also said to be very thick and, according to sources, could result in a 3-hour movie.

Cregger turned a lot of heads in the fall of 2022 when “Barbarian” became a critical and commercial success. All this on a skimp $4.5 million budget. Cregger’s previous work included being in a comedy troupe called The Whitest Kids U Know, so, yeah, nobody saw this impressive debut coming.