Zach Cregger Might Give Weapons' Best Character A Prequel - Here's Why That's A Good Idea

This article contains spoilers for "Weapons."

That evil witch Gladys (Amy Madigan) might have been torn limb from limb in the crowd-pleasing climax of Zach Cregger's "Weapons," but that doesn't mean we've seen the last of her. The picaresque tale of one small city falling apart after an unimaginable tragedy plays like Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia" was possessed by the forces of pure evil, all blended with the wickedly funny sensibility that made Cregger's previous film, "Barbarian," a surprise hit. Indeed, Cregger has now made good on that movie's promise with "Weapons," which killed it (pun intended) at the box office in its opening weekend, exceeding pre-release projections to bring in $43.5 million domestically.

The film is broken up into discrete chapters focusing on a specific character's point of view, slowly unraveling the presence of a malevolent force lurking in the darkness. Who, exactly, is perpetuating this twisted spell on the town? It turns out to be an elderly woman named Gladys, donning a gaudy red wig and way too much makeup, her chipper attitude allowing her to waltz right up to her unsuspecting victims and take hold of their lives like a parasite. Who she is, where she comes from, and the source of Gladys' powers is left largely unexplained since the film is more interested in the bloody consequences of her actions. But Madigan creates a character who is both larger than life and terrifyingly tangible, disappearing behind the makeup to give a performance that, if you ask me, deserves an Oscar nod.

With the film's success, it's not a big surprise to hear that Warner Bros. and New Line are eager to have Cregger dive deeper into the world of "Weapons." Now, The Hollywood Reporter has let slip that Cregger is mulling a potential prequel film centered on Gladys. So much of the character's eerie power comes from her ability to steal scenes out from under her co-stars' noses, but there are two reasons why giving us more of this twisted spell-caster is a good idea.

Prequels focusing on horror movie villains can easily fall into a dangerous trap where they deflate all of the mystery and tension around these wicked characters. Yes, we're often left yearning (or maybe even demanding) to know more about where these evil-doers come from, but giving audiences what they want is usually only a good idea if you're a studio looking for an easy payday. That's because the ambiguity of never getting a real answer is generally all the more horrifying than anything you can put on screen, as our imaginations try to solve the horrific algebra problem of how X person became Y monster.

In other words, delving deeper into Gladys' story is certainly risky. Still, the thing that makes this situation different is that Gladys' origins were initially meant to be revealed in "Weapons." As noted in THR's article, "sources say that Cregger actually had a chapter focused on Gladys and some of her backstory" at some point, but "he ultimately pulled that section from the script for length purposes."

"Weapons" manages to cover a lot of ground over the course of 128 minutes, so cutting the Gladys chapter from the script makes a lot of sense. Indeed, the film still devotes a good deal of time to showing just how horrible she is, particularly during a section that, with its child abuse metaphor, evokes 2023's much-debated "Skinamarink." Really, this sequence tells us all we need to know about her. Still, if THR's sources are correct and the Gladys chapter was cut for length and not its  quality, then that's a sign a prospective prequel could heighten the film's dreadful power without detracting from it. At the very least, this suggests Cregger always planned to give us more Gladys, whether it was in "Weapons" or another film.

When Gladys meets up with Maybrook elementary school principal Marcus Miller (Benedict Wong) to discuss her "nephew" Alex (Cary Christopher), she explains her role in the latter's life and why his parents can't be there, claiming they have fallen ill with "consumption." Marcus is confused by the story: "Consumption" isn't a disease people have had to worry about since the days we were traveling across the Oregon Trail. Gladys quickly changes the subject, but the implication is clear: She's been around much, much longer than the rest of the characters in "Weapons," and this is where the potential of a Gladys prequel really becomes apparent.

At somewhere in the ballpark of $38 million, "Weapons" had a much larger budget than "Barbarian," so truly exploring how old Gladys is was probably never in the cards. But by splitting off into its own feature film, a Gladys prequel could allow Cregger to explore a new genre in the "Weapons" universe: the Western. After all, if Gladys is old enough to make cultural references to the frontier days of the Old West, a prequel film could explore what she was up to in those days. Armed with Cregger's wicked sense of humor and penchant for thrills, a movie along those lines would feel much more unique that your average horror follow-up ever could.

Taking such a dramatic left turn might sound risky in the wake of "M3GAN 2.0," which bombed at the box office after pulling a similar genre change-up. However, if you want see how a Gladys prequel could work, one need look no further than Ti West's "Pearl," a Technicolor-soaked nightmare that reveals the grim origins of the titular character — first played by its star, Mia Goth, in West's "X" — while still working as a standalone film in its own right.

Whether Cregger goes down this route, or a Gladys prequel even happens, is still very much in the air. Cregger is already hard at work on his next film, the latest stab at a "Resident Evil" movie, and is also working on two other projects: "Henchman," a film set in the DC Universe, and "Flood," an original science-fiction script.

Cregger, as he told THR, seems mindful of how "everything in this business changes on a dime," (sorta) joking that his take on "Resident Evil" could backfire and kill any interest in a Gladys prequel. But if that were to happen, let's just say there'd be an army of "Weapons" fans out there ready to launch themselves like a missile to break Cregger out of Director's Jail.

"Weapons" is currently playing in theaters.