Director Zach Cregger‘s hit film Weapons is more David Fincher-esque than you’d think — the sly humor, the measured pace, the layered themes, all presented in a genre package. The movie has been playing in theaters worldwide, to massive success, for nearly a month. It’s the fifth hit in a row for Warner Bros., and the studio’s third horror breakout of the year, after Ryan Coogler‘s Sinners and Final Destination Bloodlines. Weapons has now out-grossed one of Fincher’s most underrated movies, a movie that delivered a solid result at the box office and earned a bunch of Oscar nominations, but was still deemed not successful enough to warrant a sequel.
With $239 million at the global box office, Weapons has overtaken the $238 million lifetime global haul of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Fincher’s 2011 adaptation of the best-selling thriller novel by Stieg Larson. The book, and its sequels, were previously adapted into a trio of Swedish-language movies starring Noomi Rapace in the lead role of the computer hacker Lisbeth Salander. Fincher’s English-language film starred Rooney Mara in the central role, for which she was nominated at the Oscars. Mara was joined by Daniel Craig, Robin Wright, Christopher Plummer, and Stellan Skarsgård in supporting roles.
Produced on a reported budget of $90 million, it was decided by Sony that a sequel doesn’t make financial sense. Instead, the studio rebooted the franchise with a poorly received box office bomb titled The Girl in the Spider’s Web, starring Claire Foy in the lead role. Incidentally, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remains one of Fincher’s final theatrical releases; he directed one more, the critical and commercial hit Gone Girl, before moving to streaming for good. He’s currently putting together a sequel to Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Weapons Received Excellent Reviews
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was widely acclaimed, and is sitting at a “certified fresh” 86% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus reads, “Brutal yet captivating, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the result of David Fincher working at his lurid best with total role commitment from star Rooney Mara.” Weapons was just as well-received; it’s sitting at a 92% score on RT. Starring Julia Garner and Josh Brolin, the movie follows a handful of characters in the aftermath of a mysterious event which resulted in the disappearance of 17 out 18 children of a third-grade class. You can watch the movie in theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
Weapons
- Release Date
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August 8, 2025
- Runtime
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128 minutes
- Director
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Zach Cregger
- Writers
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Zach Cregger
- Producers
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Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, J.D. Lifshitz