You’ll be able to’t maintain a powerful girl down. Because the hands-down stand-out queen of Zach Cregger’s large horror hit “Weapons,” star Amy Madigan has been the topic of some severe chatter in current weeks. Not solely does she ship, ahem, eye-catching thrills and skin-crawling chills because the witchy villain within the style smash, her efficiency has additionally impressed some early awards chatter.
And whereas movie followers and cinephiles alike like to tout style performances for Oscar love, it tends to be a troublesome row to hoe with the Academy of us. Nonetheless, Madigan is totally deserving of awards consideration, however all that discuss simply how rattling (and damned, relying on how you are feeling about her deeds) good she is within the movie would possibly engender one thing else: a complete prequel, only for her.
Whereas prequel talked kicked up inside days of the movie’s theatrical launch in August, with The Hollywood Reporter noting on August 12 that “Warner Bros. and New Line … are already speaking with Cregger about making a prequel exploring the origin story of the unusual aunt who abruptly arrives on the town.”
That THR report additionally pointed to the movie’s “chapter construction centering on specific characters” and that “sources say that Cregger really had a chapter centered on Gladys and a few of her backstory. He in the end pulled that part from the script for size functions. Now with the film’s wild success, that misplaced chapter could be expanded right into a full-length story.”
On the time, a supply informed IndieWire that any plans for the time being are merely hypothesis. However, hypothesis apart, Cregger himself has now confirmed in a new interview with Fangoria that he’s engaged on an Aunt Gladys-centric prequel thought.
“It’s actual and I’ve been speaking to Warner Bros. about it. There’s a narrative and I’m fairly enthusiastic about it. It’s not bullshit,” he informed the outlet. He additionally added that the prequel thought was kicking round earlier than the movie opened to very large success. “I used to be prepared,” he stated. “I had it type of in my pocket earlier than the film got here out.”
In August, as prequel chatter heated up, The New York Instances requested Madigan concerning the rumors. “You understand what? I feel it’s very nice to be in a dialog,” she informed the outlet. “I’m positively not poo-pooing it, however as a result of I’ve been doing this for a very long time, issues aren’t actual until they’re actual. Hear, I really like Gladys, I really like being in Zach’s creativeness and being on Zach’s web page, however what are individuals going to speak about in a few weeks or in November? It’s nice and thrilling when individuals discuss it, however I’m a type of people who type of takes it with a grain of salt.”
A lot will rely upon Cregger’s more and more busy schedule. The filmmaker is at present in prep on his subsequent characteristic, a new “Resident Evil” movie primarily based on the online game franchise for Sony. Like “Weapons,” Cregger’s tackle that IP was additionally the topic of an aggressive bidding struggle, one which Warner Bros. pursued earlier than it landed at Sony. That movie is ready to open in theaters September 2026.
And whereas an Oscar nom for her work within the style hit would (nonetheless, regardless of some current recognitions) be a little bit of an outlier in the entire awards world, it could not be new to Madigan: she was nominated in 1986 for Finest Supporting Actress for her work in “Twice in a Lifetime” (she misplaced out to Anjelica Huston for “Prizzi’s Honor”).
A Warner Bros. launch, “Weapons” is at present out there to stream on video-on-demand platforms, together with Prime Video, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Residence.
