{"id":68702,"date":"2025-08-08T23:20:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T23:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/68702\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T23:20:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T23:20:06","slug":"director-wants-second-film-talks-david-finchers-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/68702\/","title":{"rendered":"Director Wants Second Film, Talks David Fincher’s Help"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT:\u00a0This article contains minor spoilers about \u201cWeapons<\/a>,\u201d now playing in theaters.<\/p>\n

\n\tDirector Zach Cregger<\/a>\u2018s sophomore feature, \u201cWeapons,\u201d is a story about a small town overtaken by a malevolent force. One night, all of the kids from a specific classroom run away, and the townspeople become increasingly furious that the police have no leads. The narrative follows several locals \u2014\u00a0including troubled teacher Justine (Julia Garner), whose class went missing; Paul, a cop (Alden Ehrenreich); Archer (Josh Brolin), whose son is one of the missing kids; and a young burglar (Austin Abrams) \u2014\u00a0as they get pulled into the central mystery.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough he was unable to talk about any specific spoilers at the end of the film, Cregger broke down many key elements in \u201cWeapons,\u201d Including the film\u2019s use of humor, gore and that surreal moment with the floating assault weapon.<\/p>\n

\t\tYou\u2019ve cited Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s \u201cMagnolia\u201d as an inspiration for some of the structure and ideas in the film. When did you first realize that you wanted \u201cWeapons\u201d to have a similarly unconventional story construction?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI think the idea for the structure came very early on. I knew once I got out of the cold open and started with Justine that she was not going to be the only perspective of this story. I was pretty instantly excited about the idea of having a novelistic structure where we follow different protagonists, but I wanted to set a rule for myself that I would never go back. Once I moved on, their chapter was done. If I could hold fast to that, the movie would be better for it, and it was not an easy thing for me to do, but for better or worse, I committed to that structure. And that\u2019s not really the structure that \u201cMagnolia\u201d follows. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMagnolia\u201d is more of a reference point for me because of the scale and the tone of it. And John C. Reilly\u2019s mustache is in my movie on Alden\u2019s face. Honestly, there\u2019s something about the John C. Reilly stuff where he loses the gun and he\u2019s searching for it in the rain that felt like a North Star. Just the vibe of that, I want to live in that, so I wanted to write a movie that feels like it\u2019s moving in that direction.<\/p>\n

\t\tYou\u2019ve said writing the script was a way to deal with the grief after a person close to you passed away. Now that the film is complete, do you feel like this process gave you some closure or the answers you were searching for?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tNo. I mean, it doesn\u2019t work that way. Somebody dies, and you\u2019re gonna feel that absence for the rest of your life. Maybe the sting can kind of lessen, but I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s time or community or what. I don\u2019t think making this movie has exorcised any demons. It\u2019s just given me an opportunity to engage with those feelings in a healthy, constructive way. Rather than going and drinking myself to death, I\u2019m able to write a character that drinks herself into a problem. I can take my anger and have Josh Brolin freak out, and that\u2019s better than me freaking out.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere\u2019s a surreal moment in the movie where Archer has a dream and sees a giant assault weapon floating over a house. Would you be able to speak about what that moment means to you?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t know. It\u2019s a very important moment for me in this movie, and to be frank with you, I think what I love about it so much is that I don\u2019t understand it. I have a few different ideas of what it might be there for, but I don\u2019t have the right answer. I like the idea that everyone is probably going to have their own kind of interaction or their own relationship with that scene, whether they don\u2019t give a shit about it and it\u2019s boring, or whether they think it\u2019s some sort of political statement, or whether they think it\u2019s just cool. I don\u2019t really care. It\u2019s not up to me. I just like that it\u2019s there.<\/p>\n

\t\tYou come from a comedy background, and while much of this film is played straight, there are some darkly comedic moments. How are you able to find the beats where humor makes sense to correctly tell the story?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tYou have to just let them come organically to the situation that you\u2019re writing and not try to inject anything funny into the movie. There are a couple of jokes I wrote into the movie where I thought I was being clever, and they\u2019re all on the cutting room floor. The rule I\u2019ve learned for myself is to let the situation dictate the humor. Let the movie ask me for the humor, don\u2019t try to put it in. Be in service of the story, don\u2019t try to be clever.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere\u2019s some very grisly violence in this movie. Did you have to trim anything as a result of the studio or the ratings board?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI got everything. I mean, it\u2019s not that grisly. I guess I could thank \u201cTerrifier 3\u201d for coming out and totally raping everybody\u2019s eyes so that anything I\u2019m going to do is going to feel PG.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere were a lot of smooshed heads.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, but I\u2019m still working on that because I tried it in \u201cBarbarian\u201d and I didn\u2019t get it right, and I\u2019m trying it in \u201cWeapons.\u201d I didn\u2019t quite get it, but one day I\u2019m going to get that \u201cIrreversible\u201d fire extinguisher head smash. That\u2019s my white whale. I\u2019ve got to try it again.<\/p>\n

\t\tDavid Fincher is thanked in the end credits. How did he help you with the film?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s just a very helpful guy. He was available to me during prep, and then he was very available during the post process. He watched the movie and had a lot of really constructive thoughts and gave me a ton of ideas. He helped me learn more about the editing process and how to think about it in a new way that wasn\u2019t available to me when I was making \u201cBarbarian.\u201d So he just opened my mind up a lot.<\/p>\n

\t\tIn what ways specifically?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are things I thought I had to just settle for. I thought, \u201cWell, that\u2019s the take I have. That\u2019s the best take. And it\u2019s not perfect, but by God, nothing is.\u201d Dave\u2019s attitude is, \u201cIt can always be better, and there are a lot of tools that you have at your disposal that you might not be thinking about.\u201d So, from reframing to stabilization to ADR to all sorts of things, it was really cool. Honestly, I learned a lot about how to prep, what lenses to use. I shot this mostly anamorphic, and I didn\u2019t quite respect how limiting anamorphic is in the post process. So stuff like that, technical stuff.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere are so many performances in the film that walk tricky tonal tightropes. How did you know that your key players would be the perfect people to be on the same wavelength as this film?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019ve seen their work, so I know what tones they can take. I know Josh can be really funny and really serious \u2014\u00a0I\u2019ve seen \u201cNo Country for Old Men,\u201d and I\u2019ve seen \u201cHail, Caesar!\u201d I know what he can do. Julia in \u201cThe Assistant\u201d \u2026 I watched that and thought, \u201cThis is what I need. This is amazing.\u201d She\u2019s amazing, but that movie tipped the scales for me. Alden, I\u2019ve been a massive fan since I saw \u201cHail, Caesar!\u201d Austin Abrams is a miracle, and I woke up to him when I saw \u201cBrad\u2019s Status,\u201d which is a Mike White movie that he was in. I was like, \u201cWho is this kid that has total courage in this movie, and he does nothing, and it just rocks?\u201d And then Amy Madigan, I\u2019m a huge fan. I got to collect people that I\u2019ve always loved watching.<\/p>\n

\t\tCould you see yourself working on another story set in this world? \t<\/p>\n

\n\tDefinitely. I\u2019ve actually \u2026 it\u2019s funny you asked that. I can\u2019t help it: I have another idea for something in this world that I\u2019m kind of excited about. I\u2019m not going to do it next, and I probably won\u2019t do it after my next movie, but I do have one and I\u2019d like to see it on the screen one day.<\/p>\n

\t\tI know you\u2019re directing the upcoming \u201cResident Evil\u201d movie, and you\u2019re a big fan of the games. What are you hoping to bring to the cinematic experience that fellow fans will be excited about?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThose games pioneered something special. The pacing of those games is so unique and effective, and just being locked in with one character moving from point A to point B, knowing you\u2019re going to pass through this gauntlet of terror, and you\u2019ve got to be methodical and thoughtful about it. That\u2019s cool. That\u2019s cinematic. So I want to tell the story in the world of the games that honors the lore of the games, but it\u2019s a new story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT:\u00a0This article contains minor spoilers about \u201cWeapons,\u201d now playing in theaters. Director Zach Cregger\u2018s sophomore feature, \u201cWeapons,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[49932,88,49933,3439,34726],"class_list":{"0":"post-68702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-david-fincher","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-resident-evil","11":"tag-weapons","12":"tag-zach-cregger"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}