Following a brief online in-universe marketing campaign, New Line Cinema has just released the first official trailer for the upcoming horror-mystery Weapons. Weapons serves as the follow-up effort by writer/director Zach Cregger, most recently known in the horror sphere as the mastermind behind 2022’s Barbarian. Audiences applauded Barbarian for its twisty-turny nature and story structure with an ever-evolving mystery that keeps viewers on their toes. Now, a first look is finally being granted at the next mystery conjured up by Cregger. The trailer reinstates the central key to the mystery as explored in previous marketing: the small town of Maybrook is shocked when a classroom of children belonging to Mrs. Gandy (Julia Garner) suddenly disappears in the middle of the night, never to return.

Also seen in the trailer is an angry Josh Brolin, who plays the father of one of the missing children, at a community meeting. Gandy is haunted in her dreams by terrifying images of her students, and a look at Alden Ehrenreich’s police officer character is given. Closer, eerie footage of the horde of children running uniformly through the streets of Maybrook is also scattered throughout the two minute video. Other quick flashes seem too curious to analyze just yet, with maybe future promotion or the film itself needed to fully understand its context. Audiences will just have to wait and see.

The film had already garnered a notable reputation pre-promotion. The script sold for an impressive $38 million, which covered production and salaries. The film had gone through an intense bidding war, and industry titan and friend of Cregger, Jordan Peele, had been participating under his Monkey Paw banner in conjunction with Universal. After the rights were sold to New Line instead, Peele reportedly fired his representation as a result. Weapons release date was originally slated for January 2026, and instead had been moved forward to August of this year. This news followed the report that Cregger’s third film, a film adaptation of the Resident Evil video game series, was sold to Sony and had entered pre-production. It’s needless to say Cregger’s name and portfolio alone have established quite a stir and demand in the horror genre and film industry. Audiences should be excited to see what surprises the filmmaker has in store next.

Weapons releases in theaters August 8, 2025. Watch the trailer below.