The Boy in the Iron Box is making his way to the screen.
Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s serialized novel is getting a feature film adaptation from writer-director David Prior (Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, The Empty Man). Starring Rupert Friend, Kevin Durand, and Jaeden Martell, The Boy in the Iron Box is the pulse-pounding tale of a team of mercenaries who find themselves out of their depth on a remote summit. What they encounter there will give you nightmares.
You can finally take writer/director Zach Cregger’s Weapons home.
The horror epic, about a classroom full of kids that mysteriously vanish at 2:17 a.m., was released in theaters this summer, where it promptly became a huge hit. It made more than $267 million worldwide, which is even more impressive when you consider that it was an original concept, not based on a preexisting property. There are even rumblings that the movie, which stars Julia Garner, Josh Brolin and Alden Ehrenreich, could be a low-key Oscar contender. (Amy Madigan should be a shoo-in for Best Supporting Actress.)
And if you wanted to further explore its mysteries over and over again, now is your chance, with the film available on digital (on Apple TV, Prime Video, Fandango on Demand and other platforms) and physical media (DVD, Blu-ray and 4K UHD).
TheWrap spoke to Cregger about some of the things everyone has been talking about since the release of Weapons. “You hope people are going to respond to it and try and keep your expectations low and but that’s a hard thing to do,” Cregger said about the oversized response to Weapons. “But I was very pleasantly surprised.”
Read on for Cregger’s breakdown of some of Weapons most talked-about moments. But a massive spoiler warning should be issued ahead.
This is a story about my friend Aubrey, who died. It is also, inevitably, about me. This is possibly – definitely – self-involved, but the loss of someone is not abstract, or simply about someone’s inherent human worth, it is also about how stricken we are not to have them around, about what they meant to us, the part they played in our story.
Aubrey Day died a year ago, October 2, 2024. We had known each other 20 years, having met when I joined Total Film magazine, at Future Publishing. He was overseeing a few publications, but his passion was clearly movies and TV. He was a few years older than me, which in your 20s feels like a generation, and seemed debonair and certain, insanely confident and very, very clever. A few colleagues disliked him, not least because as well as being the smartest guy in the room, he was never especially shy about letting you know he was the smartest guy in the room. I just felt I had a lot to learn. And he was more than happy to teach. Not that he had a curriculum, or talked down to you (well, he didn’t always talk down to you), but he would present a problem and push you to solve it. It was a little sink or swim – he’d worked a bit in tabloids and had a tougher approach than the pally magazine world I was used to – but if he believed you could swim, that belief would buoy you.
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Watch the shorts by Nev Pierce, including Bricks, an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation starring Jason Flemyng and Blake Ritson, which David Fincher said about: “A morbid yet classy take on a morbid classic.”
On September 22, 1995, David Fincher’s SE7EN introduced audiences to a darkness unlike anything seen before, accompanied by an opening title sequence from Kyle Cooper that has since become one of the most influential in film history.
For this classic title sequence, David Fincher tasked Kyle Cooper, founder of Prologue Films, to get inside the mind of a serial killer, immediately setting an ominous tone. Typography was scrawled into scratch board and shot on film, and Cooper shot tabletop photography representing the preparation of the killer’s obsessive sketchbooks. This dark yet spirited sequence was called a “masterpiece of dementia” and was credited with the resurgence of a generation’s interest in film title design.
The audio of this video is pulled from Kyle’s interview on the 2010 Blu-ray Special Edition of SE7EN, where he discussed the making of the sequence in detail.
In Part 1, Kyle reflects on his early conversations with Fincher. The two bounced ideas back and forth, shaping a vision that would forever change the way opening credits were made. This reel pairs finished titles with original process photographs, every frame shot on film, every prop (from John Doe’s notebooks to the hand model) photographed and tested.
“People think there’s computer graphics in there, but we assembled the majority of the sequence by hand… it takes on a life of its own.” In Part 2, he explains how he created the unsettling typography. Every letter was scratched, smeared, and distorted through the camera itself, analogue from start to finish. This reel pairs final frames from the title sequence with the original process photography of John Doe’s notebooks, props, and hands, showing how the haunting visuals took shape long before digital tools.
“This is John Doe’s job: he gets up, makes his books, plans his murders, drinks his tea.” In part 3, he reveals how the titles were designed to immerse viewers directly into the fractured psyche of the killer. To capture the killer’s mindset, Kyle went beyond typography. He gathered real objects from his surroundings, fish hooks, razor blades, sewing needles, twine, even clumps of hair from his shower drain, and filmed them in-camera alongside hand-crafted journals. These raw analogue elements were photographed, tested, and layered into the sequence, blurring the line between prop and pathology.
Kyle has recalled in interviews that during the premiere, when the title sequence finished, the audience actually clapped, something almost unheard of for opening credits. Thirty years later, that impact still reverberates across cinema and design.
The SE7EN End Credits Crawl
The unease of SE7EN doesn’t end with the final scene. Even the closing crawl was designed to keep audiences trapped in John Doe’s world.
Kyle and Kim Cooper crafted the end credits entirely by hand. Each name was cut out and taped together into a single, massive scroll, almost like a tapestry. The piece was then shot with a video camera and lit from behind so the light bled through the lettering.
To deepen the sense of obsession, the crawl was embellished with objects John Doe might have owned: razor blades, fishing hooks, twine, screws, wire, flies, even hair pulled from a shower drain. Every detail was assembled practically, frame by frame, just like the opening titles.
We first show the original handmade scroll, now preserved in five long backlit panels at Prologue Films. Continue watching to see the crawl as it appeared in 1995. Instead of rolling upward like a traditional credit sequence, Fincher had it roll downward, a subtle inversion that mirrored the sick, twisted psychology at the heart of the film.
SE7EN end credits crawl panel, displayed at Prologue Films, photographed by Hideo Kojima.
“If we catch John Doe and he turns out to be the devil, if he’s Satan himself, that might live up to our expectations. But he’s not the devil, he’s just a man.” — Detective William Somerset
“I don’t believe that you’re quitting because you believe these things you say. I don’t. I think you want to believe them because you’re quitting. You want me to agree with you and you want me to say ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re right, it’s all f***ed up’…. but I won’t. I won’t say that. I don’t agree with you. I do not. I can’t.” — Detective David Mills
These are some of the lines exchanged between the heroes of David Fincher’s classic 1995 feature, Se7en, as they have a heart-to-heart conversation late in the film. It is a scene that contrasts considerably in tone and mood to the more memorably horrific and gory scenes in the film.
This scene may well be the most important, if not the most moving, in a film largely known for its bleak, macabre, and unforgiving atmosphere. As a moment of respite for the audience, the scene demonstrates how well detectives David Mills and William Somerset complement each other, despite their many superficial differences.
Released in September 1995, David Fincher’s Se7en proved to be a sleeper hit of 1995 (overall, and appropriately, the seventh highest-grossing film of 1995). It was a critical smash and a redemptive feature film success for Fincher (after the very mixed results of his film debut, Alien 3). Andrew Kevin Walker’s screenplay also received a BAFTA nomination for Best Original Screenplay. It is also, alongside 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, considered the defining serial killer feature of the 1990s, forging a considerable impact on the genre going forward.
In an exclusive excerpt from the revealing new book ‘The Making of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,’ the film’s director and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie explain how they took L.A. back to the summer of ’69.
“Rick, how are you doing with getting Hollywood Boulevard for me?” Quentin asked his location manager, Rick Schuler. “I’m doing well,” Schuler replied.
Quentin looked at his first assistant director, Bill Clark, and looked at Schuler. “Doing well” was not going to cut it. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was a Los Angeles story, a Hollywood story, and it needed to be filmed in Los Angeles. It needed Hollywood as a backdrop. He wanted to convert Los Angeles back to 1969 — “You know, literally street by street, block by block.”
Schuler had been in discussion with the California Film Commission for weeks. Under Quentin’s gaze, he admitted, “Well, I think I’m 80 percent there.”
“Rick, if there’s anything I can do to help you out, I’ll be willing to do that,” Quentin replied.
Production designer Barbara Ling was also anxious to know what it was she was going to be working with. Schuler had been asking the Hollywood powers that be, responsible for the economic success of their city, to shut down eight blocks.
“They had been, like, ‘Eight blocks? No way!’ and had said no a hundred times,” Ling recalls. “I also remember, eight blocks was freaking out the producers budget-wise.”
Schuler had an idea how he could utilize the filmmaker’s extraordinary enthusiasm and will to best use. He had an idea he wanted to run by Bill Clark: Schuler had a meeting with the Hollywood neighborhood council. Would Quentin be willing to address them — just talk about the project? Talk about the movie, what Hollywood meant to him? It could help get things over the line.
The day of the meeting, Schuler sprung it on Quentin and Clark that he wanted to make the filmmaker the surprise star act of his pitch and have him come in at the end. Nobody on the council would know he was there beforehand.
“For whatever reason, Rick thought it would be best if he kept Quentin a surprise to the council members,” Clark says.
After being optioned for an adaptation, things are moving quickly with Netflix’s adaptation of Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s Audible series The Boy in the Iron Box, which is scheduled to begin filming in October 2025. David Prior, who has worked with GDT before, will be writing and directing the project, it has now been revealed.
Netflix has officially confirmed that The Boy in the Iron Box will be making its way onto our screens via a new feature film and has added three cast members ahead of filming commencing next month in Canada.
The Church of Tarantino is a podcast channel with weekly shows dedicated to discussing every and anything related to the films of Quentin Tarantino. One of our 4 unique monthly series drop an episode every Friday. Ranking Tarantino (1st Friday of the month), The Bible Study (2nd Friday of the month), Inglourious Blue Balls (3rd Friday of the month) & Tarantinoesque Film Review (4th Friday of the month). Whether we’re ranking various aspects of his films, dissecting his scenes, discussing all the projects he’s announced, or reviewing films that are like his, there’s something for every QT fan.
For this episode, join the Reverend inside Pam’s Coffy, for his first ever sit down with Mr. Quentin Tarantino, as they discuss the cancellation of The Movie Critic, the origin of The Adventures of Cliff Booth, why he handed it to Brad Pitt and David Fincher, his “favorite director”, what his next project is going to be, why Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair is still unavailable to the public, the brilliance of the late great Michael Madsen and so much more, including the question he’s been dying to ask for over 2 and a half years: “What ever happened to the Untitled TV Series?” This is a must-listen for true Tarantino fans.
Frame & Reference is a conversation between Cinematographers hosted by Kenny McMillan. Each episode dives into the respective DP’s current and past work, as well as what influences and inspires them. These discussions are an entertaining and informative look into the world of making films through the lens of the people who shoot them.
Miles Perkins, Industry Manager, Epic Games July 28, 2025 Unreal Engine
Join Tim Miller, co-founder of Blur Studio and winner of multiple Emmy Awards, for a candid chat on his origins as an animator and visual effects artist, his “story first” philosophy, and his views on creativity. Tim’s curiosity and drive has led him to branch out from traditional visual effects to direct live-action features and explore real-time animation with Blur’s Secret Level series and the LOVE DEATH & ROBOTS anthology series.
The Fincher Analyst 