A new horror movie starring Josh Brolin will make up for Netflix cancelling The Society. Released in 2019, the Netflix show focuses on a group of teenagers who discover that everyone in their town has disappeared. They have no contact with any outside world and a seemingly endless forest now surrounds them, leaving the teens with no choice but to create their own society. The Society‘s cast included Kathryn Newton and Natasha Liu Bordizzo, who have since gone on to play the respective roles of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Cᴀssie Lang and Star Wars‘ Sabine Wren.

With an 86% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, the Netflix series was generally well-received, and was renewed for season 2. However, in August 2020, The Society was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. While many shows get cancelled, The Society‘s fate was particularly frustrating since the show had already been renewed, and it ended on a major cliffhanger that offered a glimpse at the adults and younger children who had seemingly disappeared. Five years after Netflix’s disappointing update, a 2025 horror movie is now poised to be a worthy successor.

Josh Brolin’s Weapons Movie From Zach Cregger Shares Similarities With Netflix’s The Society

Weapons Includes The Mᴀss Disappearance Of A Group Of Children

The CinemaCon footage of Weapons teases significant parallels to The Society. Directed by Barbarian‘s Zach Cregger, and with a cast that includes Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong, and June Diane Raphael, the upcoming movie’s release was moved up to August 8 after being previously scheduled for January 2026. The footage shows a teacher entering her classroom, only to see that all of her students are absent. A voice-over explains that the children woke up at 2:17 in the morning, walked outside into the dark, and disappeared.

At a later point, a teacher returns to her classroom, and sees that the disappeared children have returned, but they all have their heads down on their desks in the dark. The mᴀss disappearances are most reminiscent of The Society, but the footage also includes sH๏τs of people screaming, stabbing themselves, a clown waving to someone in the woods, and a child saying, “This is where the story really starts.”

How Weapons Can Make Up For The Society’s Cancellation

It Can Show Both Sides Of The Story In A Way The Society Never Could

The portion of the footage focused on the children’s disappearance and return sounds like a scarier version of The Society that shows both sides of the story. Until The Society season 1’s ending, the series only showed what was happening to the teenagers. The final scene teased that season 2 would more fully explore what was happening with the adults and younger children, but this exploration of both sides never came to fruition due to the show’s cancellation.

Weapons can make up for this by showing what happens to the adults who are left behind when the children disappear, along with what happens from the children’s perspectives. These children sound like they might be possessed by a sinister force and that this is the cause of their mᴀss disappearance and return. The Society‘s teenagers were not possessed, and it was hinted that they were stuck in a parallel universe. Nevertheless, the overarching similarities mean that Weapons can finish the story The Society did not get to tell in its entirety.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes