- Weapons will hit theaters later this summer
- Horror fans around the world are keen to know where director Zach Cregger drew his inspiration from
- Many have questioned whether Weapons is based on a book
Weapons is set to hit theaters on August 8 – and horror fans around the globe can barely contain their excitement.
Written and directed by Zach Cregger, viewers will be expecting great things – as his first movie, Barbarian, was a box office hit in 2022.
While the trailer for the movie certainly looks creepy, fans are keen to find out where Cregger drew his inspiration from.
But is the film based on a book, or have other events influenced Cregger’s writing? Here’s everything we know.
Is Weapons based on a book?
No, Weapons isn’t based on a book… but it is based on a true story – sort of.
While an entire class of children has never mysteriously disappeared (that we know of!), Cregger has rooted his film on real missing children cases.
According to the US Child Crime Prevention & Safety Center, a child goes missing or is abducted every 20 seconds in the United States.
Losing a child is obviously any parent’s worst nightmare, so Weapons asks the question: What would happen if dozens of kids disappeared all at once?
Cregger has also admitted that while the new movie is an entirely fictitious story, it was inspired by some personal experiences.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Cregger revealed a personal tragedy that inspired the idea for the story.
“I had a tragedy in my life that was really, really tough,” he said. “Someone very, very, very close to me died suddenly and, honestly, I was so grief-stricken that I just started writing Weapons – not out of any ambition, but just as a way to reckon with my own emotions.”
Cregger didn’t elaborate on his cryptic comments any further – but did add that parts of the tale are “legitimately autobiographical”.
“[It’s] an incredibly personal story,” he finished. “There’s certain chapters of this that are legitimately autobiographical that I feel like I lived.”
Is any of Cregger’s other work based on a book?
Cregger did actually take inspiration from a book for his first directorial effort, Barbarian.
While there will be no spoilers for that here (watch if you dare!), viewers will know that the start of the movie sees Tess Marshall (played by Georgina Campbell) turn up late at night to the AirBnB she had booked so she could attend a job interview the next day.
She then finds that it has been double-booked by a man called Keith (Bill Skarsgård).
The idea for the premise came when Cregger read the non-fiction book, The Gift of Fear – and has cited a section that encourages women to trust their intuition and not ignore the subconscious red flags that arise in their day-to-day interactions with men.
Based on that, he sat down to write a single thirty-page scene that would incorporate as many of these red flags as possible – and the rest is history!
