By Drew Dietsch
| Published
I recently wrote up a piece about the box office success of Weapons and prayed that the studio wouldn’t immediately jump into the expected model of turning it into another intellectual property (IP for all the folks who like to announce their urinations). I know I was being a naive fool and hoping for the long shot. It’s one of the conditions of being a hopeless romantic with movies and film culture.
So, it is with a disappointed but expected sigh that I’ve come to report that a prequel to Weapons is being discussed at Warner Bros. along with other potential continuations of the movie.
Oh boy, here we go again.
Filmmakers Instead Of Follow-Ups
One of the most refreshing things about Weapons was echoed by an earlier Warner Bros. release from this year: Sinners. Here were two original horror movies with larger-than-usual budgets for the genre that were sold on their visionary directors. Not marketed solely on their past associated movies, but selling folks on “A Ryan Coogler Film” and “A Zach Cregger Film”. That was exciting in the same way we’ve seen Jordan Peele be marketed, because that status has allowed Peele to continue to make original genre projects with enormous creative control.
That is what audiences are really craving. Even Josh Brolin zeroed in on this facet when he was recently taking a swing at streaming. Audiences are hungry for new creators to be pushed at the filmmaking voices of a new generation. More than the next Intellectual Property product, audiences are more excited at the prospect of the next Quentin Tarantino. The mass market filmmaking landscape is more dangerously inhuman than ever before, and audiences want an assurance that there is a unique human voice behind the art they are deciding to spend their time with.
Instead of putting their weight behind follow-ups to Weapons or Sinners, Warner Bros. should be putting their weight behind whatever Zach Cregger and Ryan Coogler want to do next. If they had a genuine creative spark for some kind of sequel/prequel/spinoff, maybe that would be worth chasing. But Coogler has openly said he views Sinners as a singular experience, and I’m willing to bet Cregger feels the same way about Weapons.
No More Prequels
The worst thing is that the current scuttlebutt is that a Weapons prequel is what’s on the table. I won’t spoil anything about the movie, but it’s very obvious where that prequel would lead. If there’s one thing Weapons did very well, it was not taking the obvious story path.
I’m not saying prequels can’t work — Better Call Saul is a masterwork that triumphs over its predecessor — but they are often the least interesting avenue to explore in a world. Considering the only facet of Weapons that would be subjected to a prequel, it would only end up acting as wiki fodder instead of a truly compelling reason to tell a new story.
But really, the point is moot because Weapons should remain a standalone story. Here’s hoping things fall apart in development like so many movies and we don’t have to start worrying about the canon of the WCU, the Weapons Cinematic Universe.
