Weapons Officially Confirms Plans for New Movie After Amy Madigan’s Oscar Win (With Help From a MonsterVerse Writer)

by

Horror fans had a fantastic year in 2025, and Zach Cregger’s film, Weapons, was a standout success. Starting with strong audience buzz, the movie earned an impressive $270 million globally on a $38 million budget. Audiences were drawn in by the mystery of the 17 missing children, but ultimately terrified by the reveal of the villain: Aunt Gladys. Amy Madigan’s unsettling and award-winning performance quickly established Gladys as a truly iconic horror character. Plans for a prequel focusing on Aunt Gladys’s backstory began circulating almost immediately, and that project is now moving forward.

As reported by Deadline, Brian Cregger and Zach Shields—a writer for several MonsterVerse films—are teaming up to write a prequel script focusing on the character Aunt Gladys. The movie is currently titled Gladys. No information about when production might begin or when the film will be released has been announced, suggesting it’s still in the very early stages of planning.

Zach Cregger Has Had a Weapons Prequel Planned for a While

It’s easy to see Gladys as just another Hollywood sequel, building a new franchise from a successful movie. But those familiar with the making of Weapons know director Cregger always intended to tell the story of Aunt Gladys. He originally planned a chapter in Weapons detailing her background, but ultimately cut it. Cregger felt keeping Gladys mysterious served the story better and helped maintain the film’s momentum.

The prequel story of Gladys wasn’t created simply because Weapons was successful. While the positive reception and financial success of Weapons made this project possible, Cregger had a story he wanted to tell for a while. The difficulty was finding the right time. Now that Aunt Gladys has become popular, Cregger and Shields can fully dedicate themselves to the prequel. However, fans will likely have to wait a bit, as Cregger is currently filming Resident Evil, which comes out in September. He’ll probably start working on Gladys once Resident Evil is finished, but he can still discuss ideas with Shields in the meantime to get the project moving.

Details about the plot are being kept secret, but the upcoming movie Gladys will likely be based on the deleted chapter featuring Gladys from Weapons. The challenge will be turning what was originally a short scene into a full-length film. However, there’s a lot of interesting material to work with. Since Weapons was released, fans have been eager to learn more about Gladys – specifically, how she started practicing witchcraft and if she has a family connection to Alex Lilly. Gladys promises to answer these questions and reveal the backstory Madigan chose for her character. For Weapons, director Cregger asked Madigan to decide if Gladys was an ordinary person or something supernatural.

It’s often tough to create successful prequels, as they risk ruining what people loved about the original story. Fans might be curious to learn more about a character like Aunt Gladys, but will they still feel the same excitement once an official backstory is revealed? Zach Cregger and Shields face a delicate challenge. However, with films like Barbarian and Weapons, Cregger has become a promising horror director, suggesting he has some clever ideas for Gladys. If done well, Gladys could actually enhance the mystery and depth of Weapons retroactively.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!

https://comicbook.com/movies/list/7-recent-horror-movies-that-were-basically-perfect/embed/#

Read More

2026-04-02 00:17