Heading into early 2014, then, it seemed like things were moving forward.īut there was still a script to get right, and all parties wanted to avoid the last minute course correction of the first movie. Off the back of The Orphanage and The Impossible, he seemed an excellent choice. There seemed little chance that Forster would return, but few could grumble when Juan Antonio Bayona was announced as the new choice instead. Reports had suggested that Pitt and Marc Forster hadn’t been a perfect match, not helped by the significantly overhauling of the first picture. Yet the problems were soon to mount.įirstly, there was a question of who to direct.
Confirmation of World War Z 2 followed within weeks of World War Z hitting big. In fact, the original plan, announced before the release of the first film, was that a trilogy was to be pursued. Not only was it a huge hit, a sequel was surely inevitable. Whilst the promotional campaign was light on the fact that zombies were involved (and that’s some understatement), and whilst the film went for a PG-13 rating (much to the understandable consternation of fans of the book), it defied the poison pens, and grossed over $540m worldwide. Yet incredibly, it was all turned around. At considerable expense, the entire final act of the film was rewritten and reshot in post-production, causing a release date delay and unending internet articles suggesting – not unreasonably – that the film was in deep trouble. The problem came in the middle of 2012, a year after filming had begun.
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Pitt would star, Paramount was to put up the near-$200m asking price (although it hadn’t gone that high at the time), and as we charted in a podcast episode here, it was full steam ahead. Rewrites followed, but that core idea still held, and in 2010, Quantum Of Solace helmer Marc Forster was recruited to direct. Yet with World War Z, a way through was found, with Babylon 5 creator J Michael Straczynski arguing for a Bourne style approach.
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But that ultimately came to zero, and it’s hard to not think the struggle to wrestle it into a movie screenplay was one reason why.
The novel Robopocalypse follows a similar structure, and was for a long time a Steven Spielberg project. The reason this one was considered so troublesome was that instead of it offering one continuing narrative, it tells the story of a zombie war through lots of different accounts, rather than one.
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It was based on the book of the same name by Max Brooks, the latest in a procession of ‘unfilmable’ books that Hollywood had a crack at.
It’s easy to overlook, nearly seven years on from its release, just what a troubled production that film was. And one of those just happened to be Plan B’s biggest hit: World War Z. However, by far the longest relationship that it’s enjoyed has been with Paramount, who had first dibs on the company’s projects between 20. What the deal gives is a first look to Warner Bros on potential Plan B projects, and it takes over from a similar deal that the company had held with Annapurna Pictures since 2017. Plan B is the highly successful production company of Brad Pitt, that’s won Oscars for 12 Years A Slave and scored sizeable box office hits too. It didn’t make huge headlines last week, but one of the movie deals that recently came to light was stuck between Plan B and Warner Bros. World War Z 2 finally had the plug pulled on it earlier this year, after six years of people trying to get the sequel moving.