‘Weapons’ Director Zach Cregger Wrote A Batman Script That, Similar To Mike Flanagan’s ‘Clayface’, Sounds Suspiciously Like An Infamous Episode Of The Animated Series
Filmmaker Zack Cregger got horror fans talking with Barbarian in 2022, and he’s doing it again this year with the hit new release Weapons. They are calling him the next big name in horror, and he appears to be on the path of carving a niche for himself in the genre, similar to Robert Eggers and Mike Flanagan. But, funnily enough, Cregger’s parallels to those two don’t end in sharing a preferred genre.
Like them, Cregger, though he claims superheroes are far from his mind, has a muse in Batman. In Eggers’s case, he admitted that Batman Returns is a blueprint for his visual style, especially when it came to Nosferatu. Meanwhile, it goes without saying that Flanagan has such an affinity for the Caped Crusader that he wrote a villain-centered movie based heavily on the timeless animated series.
The inspiration Cregger derives from the Dark Knight manifests in a way not so different from Flanagan. His creative juices flowed, and the Barbarian director knocked out a script with DC elements that he is extremely proud of. Cregger first divulged the existence of his screenplay following the release of his first acclaimed effort.
“The thing I’d love to do next,” he said on an edition of the Bloody Disgusting podcast, “I’ve actually written a movie that takes place in the DC Universe. Which is so not normally my thing; I’m not a superhero guy – I just couldn’t stop thinking about this one story that kind of takes place in a Batman-adjacent thing. And so I wrote it, and I’m utterly obsessed with it.”
He recently revealed a little more to The Hollywood Reporter, saying the idea is “totally original and it’s not a superhero movie.” We’ll see, but nevertheless, Cregger also shared that the script is older than Barbarian, so he’s had this “Batman-adjacent thing” in mind for a long time. But what does it entail?
Until now, details have been scarce, but scooper Daniel Richtman thinks he knows what Cregger’s story is about. In one of his recent Patreon reports, Richtman informed subscribers that it’s a Joker and Harley Quinn film, which is all he knows, though it’s not all she wrote on this saga. There’s more to it, and we wouldn’t say anything is as simple as Joker and Harley’s “mad love.”
According to ComicBookMovie, the story – called “Henchmen” – actually “focuses on ‘a low-level henchman in the Gotham crime world who gains notoriety after managing to incapacitate Batman through a stroke of luck.’” Additionally, “The Dark Knight could appear briefly in the movie, while Harley Quinn and Joker are in the project as well.”
If that sketch of a premise sounds familiar to you, you are not alone. It conjures images for us here of one of the most memorable episodes of Batman The Animated Series. In the 51st episode, “The Man Who Killed Batman,” bumbling wannabe crook Sid the Squid (Matt Frewer) has an encounter with the Dark Knight that leads to a clumsy struggle and an explosion.
Believed to have been caught in the blast, The Bat is presumed dead, and Sid’s notoriety grows to the point he is captured and nearly killed by The Joker and his gang via an acid bath. Soon after, Sid is granted a private audience with Rupert Thorne and Batman, who had been following the Squid the whole time, reveals himself to dispatch the crimelord.
Sid is convinced to turn himself in, which works in his favor as he becomes “a big shot at last” in prison. We wouldn’t call Cregger’s concept as original as he does if he is borrowing from BTAS. However, he could give the material the kind of edge not seen since Joker, and that Clayface hopefully delivers.
Cregger says he really wants to make Henchmen (assuming that is the real title), but he hasn’t approached James Gunn and will need quite a few years for his schedule to clear. Resident Evil is his next project and after that “I have a sci-fi movie right after that that’s original.”
