Things aren’t looking too good for the massive Zombie film, World War Z. Even though principal ohotgraphy wrapped up earlier, it’s clear that something is massively wrong with the film, as the cast and crew have been recalled for an additional seven weeks of shooting.
With the script being an apparent issue here, Damon “cryptic bastard” Lindelof has been hired to help get the story back in shape for the reshoots, things are most definitely pointing so some sort of lacklustre story so far.
According to THR, Lindelof will be rewriting whole chunks of the script, with a focus on the third act, before World War Z starts shooting again in August/September.
Based on the Max Brooks oral history novel, World War Z details the mother of all Zombie outbreaks, and stars Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, with Marc Foster directing both gigs.
WWZ was originally scheduled for a December release, before being pushed back to June next year. Let’s hope that the current six month delay helps do the book justice, when WWZ eventually hits the screens.
Last Updated: June 11, 2012
Kervyn Cloete
June 11, 2012 at 16:32
Well, that’s not good at all. You would expect an adaptation to not got through this much production drama.
Justin Hess
June 11, 2012 at 17:41
It’s amazing that they didn’t decide to use Contagion as a template for this adaptation.
A multi-cast story that takes in a biological problem that poses a huge threat to the entire globe?
Yeah, Contagion might not be a bad place to look at
James Francis
June 12, 2012 at 08:31
The reasons why they are doing this could be numerous. Perhaps they did use that template, but audiences saw it as a clone. Maybe some studio execs nixed it, fearing for their jobs if it bombs. This is Paramount, which does not have a single tent pole movie this year. It wanted World War Z to be a trilogy, so there is a lot more at stake here than one film.
James Francis
June 12, 2012 at 08:31
That’s a bit unfair, isn’t it? The source material often has little to do with how problematic a film can be.
Kervyn Cloete
June 12, 2012 at 09:21
Nah, what I meant was just that with a story – a successful story – already in place, a lot of the narrative heavy lifting has been done.
And yes, some material is notoriously hard to adapt for screen, often exacerbating the problem, but World War Z certainly doesn’t seem to fall into that camp.
James Francis
June 12, 2012 at 11:11
I dunno – it just needs the right people. Consider Perfume and Amercian Psycho – both books regarded as unfilmable. Stanley Kubrick said as much. Then along comes someone and makes it seem like an obvious choice.
But I see what you mean. Look at Max Payne. Why did anyone think the movie plot would be an improvement over the original game story?