Weapons: Jordan Peele was bidding against New Line Cinema for Barbarian director’s next film

Over the last week, New Line Cinema has been making headlines for going all-in on a partnership with Barbarian (watch it HERE) writer/director Zach Cregger and the film’s producers at BoulderLight Pictures. New Line came out the winner in a bidding war over Cregger’s next film, a mysterious horror project called Weapons. They signed a first look deal with BoulderLight Pictures, tasking the company with developing high concept genre projects for them. And they gave a greenlight to the thriller Companion, produced by BoulderLight and Cregger. Now Deadline has revealed who the runner-up was in the Weapons bidding war: Get Out, Us, and Nope filmmaker Jordan Peele, who wanted to produce the film through his company Monkeypaw, for release through Universal Pictures.

According to Deadline, New Line Cinema spent $38 million to secure Weapons as their own. That includes the film’s budget, as well as the $5 million Cregger will be getting for writing and directing it and a second $5 million he’ll be getting for producing it alongside Vertigo’s Roy Lee and Miri Yoon, and BoulderLight’s J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules. Apparently Universal’s bid was $7 million short of New Line’s, and Peele was willing to give up part of his contractual back end to help sweeten the deal.

Deadline continues, “This is where it enters Rashomon territory with rumors racing in all kinds of directions. One version goes that Peele was pissed, but we’re also told that Peele was told that if he matched the New Line bid he would win the property but he and Universal were uneasy about the budget as a business proposition, and they walked away.” Whether Peele was upset to lose Weapons or decided to walk away, it does appear that the bidding war situation strained his relationship with his managers Joel Zadak and Peter Principato at Artists First – the latter of whom also happens to be Cregger’s manager. Peele had been working with Artists First since his days on Mad TV, but after losing the Weapons auction he parted ways with the company.

Many people seem to feel that Cregger is going to become a big name in the horror genre just like Peele is, so now we’ll have to wait and see whether that turns out to be true.

Were you a fan of Barbarian, and are you looking forward to seeing what Cregger does with Weapons? Let us know by leaving a comment below – and let us know if you would have rather seen Cregger working with Peele and Universal than with New Line.