After struggling to get financing, exhaustive reshoots, and having the
set raided by a SWAT team, it's a miracle that "World War Z" got finished at all.
The journey of "World War Z" as a film began years before it hit the big screen,
with Marc Forster joining the project as its director in 2008 while J. Michael Straczynski
was the first person hired to pen the screenplay for the film adaptation of the Max Brooks book
of the same name. Forster's participation here was intriguing in terms of timing since it came
a few months before his feature "Quantum of Solace" debuted and established that
he could direct blockbuster-level movies. In talking about his vision for the film,
Forster used conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s, namely "All the President's Men,"
as touchstones for what he wanted the vibe of "World War Z" to be.
There was also the fact that the film was initially set up at Plan B Productions,
a production company founded in part by Brad Pitt, after a bidding war with
Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way. This outfit had signed a first-look deal with Paramount
Pictures three years earlier in 2005, a deal that had yielded award-season darlings
like "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "Babel". None of these initial collaborations,
though, had the kind of widespread appeal of a zombie action movie like "World War Z." The
importance of this film to the Plan B and Paramount Pictures relationship meant that,
even as Forster aimed to make the new "All the President's Men," Paramount brass
likely would've settled for the director just rehashing other past box office juggernauts.
When screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski first talked to MTV in 2008 about his draft for "World
War Z," an element he kept on emphasizing was the sheer scope of the movie. For Straczynski,
it was so exciting to make a zombie movie that had such a massive scale considering
how many iconic zombie films were much more restrained. He also presented an intriguing
meta-element related to the original Max Brooks novel. Straczynski originally planned to have
the book written in-universe during the movie, so audiences would see the film's lead writing down
events as the story progressed before ending "World War Z" with the text fully written.
It was a clever idea in that it figured out how to adapt a book that seemed difficult to translate to
the big screen. Straczynski expressed further excitement over collaborating with director
Marc Forster on what he described as a last draft of the script before the movie got up
and running sometime in 2009. Unfortunately, many of these ideas would not make it into the
final cut. Stracyznski's approach to adapting this text was so removed from the final cut of
"World War Z '' that he only received a "story by'' credit on the finished film.
Even before reshoots shot up its budget significantly,
"World War Z" was always intended to be costlier than your average zombie
movie. Namely because of the scope and scale of the script.
"'World War Z' is definitely the biggest movie I've ever done. The scale is enormous,
it's a global worldwide journey."
"World War Z" was going to star Brad Pitt, for one thing,
while its expansive global scale ensured that it was always going to cost a pretty penny to
realize. Even with all these elements baked into the movie from the get-go,
"World War Z," at one point, looked too expensive for Paramount Pictures to finance and release.
A few months before principal photography was supposed to start in early 2011,
reports emerged that Paramount Pictures needed to find a co-financier for "World
War Z." The stakes here were so significant that the project could be scrapped if another
production company didn't join in to finance its $150 million budget. However,
a savior for this zombie blockbuster came about in the form of Skydance Productions, which had
a co-financing deal with Paramount Pictures at the time. The studio stepped in to help
cover the budget of "World War Z," thus ensuring that it could go forward into production. Brad
Pitt may have saved what was left of the world in the film, but Skydance saved "Word War Z" itself.
The saga of Matthew Fox's participation in "World War Z" could be a movie unto itself. In June 2011,
just before shooting began, it was first reported that Fox was set to be a part of
the film's cast. However, just a few weeks later, it was revealed that Fox would not
be taking part in this zombie blockbuster after all because of scheduling conflicts
with "Alex Cross." That's a very normal turn of events, as many actors are reported to be
in talks for a motion picture but don't end up getting cast. What makes this peculiar is that,
in August 2011, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Fox was in the movie
after all, with the actor simply juggling "Cross" and "World War Z" simultaneously.
Talking to Extra TV in February 2013,
Fox expressed excitement over how "World War Z" was shaping up by saying…
"It's, uh…it's gonna be, uh, re…sort of…imagining, you know, reimagining of
the zombie genre. It's a big zombie movie. But it's gonna be like nothing you've seen before."
Though he was playing an effective hype man,
Fox's role in the final cut of "World War Z" ended up being so minimal that he only
appears in a few seconds of the final cut as a pilot. Movies.com reported that the original
ending to "World War Z" before its extensive reshoots heavily involved Fox's character,
who would've started a relationship with the protagonist's wife. That plot thread and nearly
all of Fox's role were deleted from "World War Z," leaving him barely visible in the final cut.
As the cast for "World War Z" began to assemble, the production began pursuing an award-season
darling for a key supporting role. In June 2011, Ed Harris was reported to be in talks to take on a
role in the feature. There was no word on who he would be playing, though given his track record
as a performer, it's likely Harris would've been a fine fit for whatever role "World War Z" threw
at the actor. Up to this point in his career, Harris had primarily done more grounded projects
with minimal CGI, so "World War Z" could've been an interesting departure from his norms.
"Could've," though, is the operative word there, as Harris ended up passing on "World War Z." There
was never any indication of what led to Harris saying no to such a high-profile project, but any
hopes of seeing Pitt and Harris interacting on the big screen were dashed. However, Harris may have
dodged a bullet by not signing on to do the film. Given that Matthew Fox was largely cut from the
feature, there's a good chance Ed Harris may have also been largely left on the cutting room floor.
In the summer of 2011, the world was gearing up for the final two
seasons of "Breaking Bad." The acclaimed program was nearing the end of the road,
and that didn't just mean the inevitable closure of Walter White's journey for super-fans of the
show. It also meant that the main actors of "Breaking Bad" were starting to keep their
eyes peeled for new acting opportunities beyond the acclaimed crime drama. The hit
series' leading man Bryan Cranston almost secured an especially interesting gig in
the twilight years of the show by entering into talks for a very small role in "World War Z."
"So what happens next?"
"I guess we shake on it and I leave."
There was no word on who Cranston would've been playing in the movie,
but the part was said to be a juicy one.
"You're goddamn right!"
While it seemed like exciting casting, it never came to pass. Cranston informed Film
School Rejects in September 2011 that he wasn't going to be in "World War Z" after all. The
actor explained that he was really eager to do the movie and work with director Marc Forster,
but scheduling conflicts made it all but impossible for him to be a part of the movie.
"No, d-d-d-don't you say that!"
Since then, there's been no further information on who Cranston would've played in this blockbuster,
but perhaps it's best to leave this prospective casting in the past. After all, Cranston missing
out on "World War Z" gave him so much more time to fixate on the final episodes of "Breaking Bad."
The biggest problem during the production of "World War Z" came with its initial ending.
In an openly vulnerable piece for Vanity Fair, the crew behind the film opened up about how
the original action-packed finale to this film simply didn't work. That initial climax would
see Brad Pitt's protagonist travel to Russia, where he would end up fighting off swarms of
zombies. There was lots of expansive carnage in this set piece, but the people behind this movie
felt like the character details of "World War Z" were getting lost in all the mayhem.
There was also another reason for changing "World War Z" so drastically. As Pitt explained
to Entertainment Weekly, one reason he signed on for the movie in the first place was that he
wanted to explore weighty socio-political ideas within the confines of a zombie action movie. The
idea of merging exciting zombie fighting with hefty themes sounded great to Pitt,
but once "World War Z" entered post-production, it was decided that the film was just too heavy.
Reshoots heavily centered on the third act were then enacted to ensure that "World
War Z" was more fun than thought-provoking. The various reasons behind overhauling the
film's climax led to Paramount Pictures spending millions reshaping the Brad Pitt star vehicle.
In June 2012, the news broke: "World War Z" was in trouble. Though it had started life
with a lot of hype surrounding the idea of Brad Pitt anchoring a big-budget zombie blockbuster,
the feature was now as tormented as any shambling corpse. The first piece of news on
this development involved Damon Lindelof getting hired to revamp the movie's third act. Lindelof
came up with the idea of how to streamline the finale and "The Cabin in the Woods" director
Drew Goddard was then hired to write down a new resolution based on Lindelof's concepts.
Lindelof later explained to The Hollywood Reporter that he was hired to work on "World War Z" because
Brad Pitt had nearly starred in "Prometheus," another blockbuster penned by Lindelof. With a
dynamic established between the two men, Lindelof was called in to listen to Pitt explain the flaws
in the then-current version of "World War Z." Lindelof expressed sympathy for how the movie
had ended up going too big in its original third act. Traditional zombie fare had often
been intimate in scope, so Lindelof could see the logic of a massive climax being necessary
to differentiate "World War Z" from typical zombie fare. Of course, that tactic ended up backfiring
terribly, and it required folks like Lindelof and Goddard to write up a radically new ending
for the troubled "World War Z." In addition to the rewrites, the director Marc Forster felt that a
shift to suspense rather than sheer spectacle would prove more satisfying to the audience.
"You can't get any bigger, and make even a bigger spectacle. So now you
bring it all back to the suspenseful moment between the 'Z' and your hero."
Even before those infamous extensive reshoots, the production of "World War Z" was plagued
by constant problems. Case in point: In October 2011, during filming, a warehouse holding weapons
for the film was raided by a SWAT team. The weapons were largely assault rifles,
with the issue here being that these were actually functional objects rather than the non-functional
entities that paperwork suggested they were. Given that transportation of functional weapons
like these was illegal, swift action involving law enforcement was taken, resulting in the SWAT team
cracking down on a warehouse full of guns that were once planned for usage in "World War Z."
Despite such a massive show made out of securing the weapons, no legal processing would come about
from this matter. In February 2012, it was revealed that Hungarian authorities had failed
to figure out who was responsible for all those guns. Unable to pin down a guilty party, charges
over the matter were dropped. The whole thing generated some headlines for a few months thanks
to a Brad Pitt movie getting embroiled in foreign legal trouble, but it mostly proved to be much ado
about nothing. In hindsight, though, this entire event is just one of many instances where "World
War Z" kept generating the kinds of news headlines that studio executives have nightmares about.
As if the scramble to get a proper third act for "World War Z" wasn't enough for major
behind-the-scenes troubles on this feature, the film was also rife with problems with its
cinematography. Original cinematographer Robert Richardson recalled to The Hollywood Reporter in
2016 that he was initially hired to lens the movie and worked incredibly hard to figure
out the look of the feature. Originally, he seemed to be in the same creative step with
director Marc Forster and Paramount Pictures executives. Unfortunately, Richardson would
quickly discover that all of his plans for how to shoot the movie had been abandoned.
Further problems emerged once Paramount brass decided that "World War Z" would be
released in digital 3D, a format that Richardson's original look for the movie didn't account for.
With "World War Z" now straying comically far from Richardson's original vision,
he didn't want his name to be on this potential blockbuster.
"I took my name off, uh…'World War Z'."
This was a significant loss for "World War Z" given the esteemed pedigree Richardson had
cultivated working with filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Martin
Scorsese. Ben Seresin would eventually step into the role of cinematographer on
the feature and bring this tormented aspect of "World War Z" to fruition.
Per CinemaBlend, the 3D release of "World War Z" was not made public knowledge until the
feature's Super Bowl commercial. While it was a sudden announcement, it shouldn't be a surprise
that "World War Z" was shown in digital 3D. The film was released in 2013, after all, when every
movie studio was still chasing extraordinary box office returns boosted by 3D ticket prices.
The abrupt nature of "World War Z" being converted to digital 3D appears to be reflected in comments
from director Marc Forster to Collider in March 2013. The director noted that he had
concerns over how the fast cuts and handheld camerawork in "World War Z" would translate
to digital 3D. While Forster wasn't dismissive of digital 3D filmmaking, his comments about
how it was implemented in "World War Z" indicate that it was a hurried decision.
The "World War Z" novel by Max Brooks was praised for getting into the nitty-gritty of
how a zombie apocalypse could occur while making the eventual "Night of the Living Dead" scenario
feel incredibly tangible. It was "The Last of Us" before "The Last of Us" ever existed in terms of
making a post-apocalyptic zombie story feel so deeply human and rooted in everyday reality.
By contrast, the movie was standard action fare that featured cartoonishly
powerful zombies and little of the substantive qualities that
got the original "World War Z" book to be so popular in the first place. Plus,
limiting the scope of the movie to just Brad Pitt's protagonist meant that the "World War
Z" movie missed out on the fascinating global events that the "World War Z" novel covered.
Before the summer of 2013 began, Box Office Mojo published its predictions for what movies would
end up being the biggest of the summer. "World War Z" came in at number 12, with the website
predicting that the film wouldn't do terribly, but that it would fare better internationally
than it would in domestic markets. Box Office Mojo would further report that even Paramount
Pictures wasn't expecting record-breaking sums of cash from the pic's opening weekend,
with the studio projecting it would gross just under or over $40 million on opening weekend.
But then "World War Z" managed to surprise everyone with a hefty $66 million debut,
a sizable haul despite this blockbuster opening against "Monsters University" and just one week
after "Man of Steel." The combination of Brad Pitt and large-scale zombie attacks
was just too good for general audiences to miss out on. In its worldwide box office run,
"World War Z" would manage an astonishing $531.8 million, including $202.7 million in North America
alone. Even on a massive $190 million budget, "World War Z" was clearly a profitable exercise.
As early as 2012, executives at Paramount Pictures and Brad Pitt were both excitedly talking about
the possibility that "World War Z" could go on for multiple movies. With a global zombie apocalypse,
there was certainly enough material here to span more than one motion picture,
especially if they tapped into some of the book material left on the table.
"We've got so many ideas, and so much information that we think,
we…we got a lot of stuff to mine from. Yeah, or two."
J.A. Bayona was later hired to direct this prospective sequel and a June 2017
release date was announced in 2015. With a flurry of activity surrounding this sequel,
"World War Z 2" was looking like a sure thing.
After a few more years of development and Bayona's departure from the director's chair, David Fincher
entered talks to helm this sequel, which would've reunited the acclaimed auteur with his "Fight
Club" leading man. By 2018, five years after the first "World War Z" had debuted, Fincher's sequel
was beginning to ramp up pre-production. However, in February 2019, Paramount Pictures canned "World
War Z 2." Pitt was reportedly displeased over the decision, which came down to the top brass
at Paramount Pictures dragging their feet on giving the movie a proper green light. The lack
of enthusiasm from the studio execs finally led to this sequel perishing after years of development.