Horror film “Weapons” is stocking up on promotional ammo ahead of its Aug. 8 release with multiple integrations launching today in Fortnite.
Available at 9 a.m. PT/12 p.m. ET, elements from the Zach Cregger-directed movie that fuse the “unsettling tension of the film with gameplay” will appear across Fortnite’s “Troll Bed Wars,” “Warrior Tycoon,” “Easy Parkour” and “Drive City” modes.
An original horror effort, “Weapons” revolves around a town’s reaction to the disappearance of an entire classroom’s worth of students who ran from from their homes in the wee hours and vanished into the night, triggering a wave of frantic finger-pointing and accusations ensnaring the students’ teacher played by Julia Garner.
Developed by creative agency and production studio Sawhorse, the film’s integration on Fortnite also includes the “2:17 AM” event occurring at the designated time in the UTC time zone, which Sawhorse describes as “an eerie timestamp” that connects players to the film’s central mystery. Across the four available Fortnite modes, players will find in-game clues, creepy environments and time-based challenges to complete.
Courtesy of Sawhorse and Warner Bros.
“This bold collaboration is a showcase of how studios like Warner Bros. are innovating beyond traditional trailers,” Nic Hill, co-founder and head of interactive at Sawhorse, said.
Sawhorse last worked with Warners on “Sinners: Survive the Night,” a Fortnite survival game ahead of the film’s April release. “Sinners” raised eyebrows with its hefty $90 million budget before it hit theaters, but the Ryan Coogler spectacle won audiences over and raked in $366 million worldwide.
The new integration is an example of how the flexibility offered by Fortnite maker Epic Games’ Unreal Engine for Fortnite product makes it easy for creators and partner studios alike to quickly design and execute promotional campaigns of all sorts making them an integral part of studios’ strategy for high-profile films and shows in the attention economy, where box office remains an unpredictable beast. Even Paul Thomas Anderson’s Leonardo DiCaprio-led “One Battle After Another” has a Fortnite event in the works, as announced Thursday.
Also starring Josh Brolin, “Weapons” arrives next month on a more modest production budget than “Sinners,” reportedly costing $38 million in a package that included $10 million total for Cregger to write, direct and produce after a frenetic bidding war. Still, that’s a sizable upgrade from Cregger’s 2022 sneak summer hit “Barbarian,” which made close to $50 million on just a $4 million budget via 20th Century.
Horror films are rarely the same financial gamble as studio tentpoles, but “M3GAN 2.0” underperformed in June, demonstrating how the enthusiasm for films like “Sinners” and “Final Destination: Bloodlines” this year hasn’t elevated the genre across the board. However, both of those films added to an undeniable hot streak for Warners that kicked off with “A Minecraft Movie” in April and continued with “Superman” earlier this month.
Sawhorse marketing partner Chartis also worked on the film’s Fortnite integrations.
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