Nordling here.
Brad Pitt sat down with the Los Angeles Times and released this little nugget of information about WORLD WAR Z, coming this December. According to the article:
In WORLD WAR Z, due in theaters right before next Christmas, Pitt will play a United Nations fact-finder and family man who desperately races around the globe to determine the origins of a zombie pandemic that has toppled civilization in short order. The film is directed by Marc Forster (FINDING NEVERLAND, QUANTUM OF SOLACE) and is similar in spirit to September's CONTAGION (from director Soderbergh and starring Damon) with its geo-political bent and the aspiration to deliver social messages amid the moans and screams.
For Pitt, the big sci-fi thriller also represents his strongest bid to have a big film franchise of his own, which might be viewed as the missing piece of his career jigsaw puzzle. Forster and Paramount Pictures each view WORLD WAR Z as a trilogy that would have the grounded, gun-metal realism of, say, Damon's Jason Bourne series tethered to the unsettling end-times vibe of AMC's THE WALKING DEAD.
Honestly? I think the subject matter could warrant a trilogy - I think the source material was better suited for a miniseries anyway - but if they are sticking to their PG-13 guns they will have an uphill battle to convince horror genre fans that WORLD WAR Z is worth their time. And, at the same time, this is a movie with a giant budget and we've never seen the Zombie Apocalypse at this level and scale before. We'll know in December whether or not it works.
What really concerns me is "gun-metal realism of the BOURNE films." Will the film turn into SHAKY-CAM Z? I sincerely hope not. I think it was that level of filmmaking that made QUANTUM OF SOLACE a weaker Bond film of the franchise. I had the biggest problem with the movie in how Marc Forster shot the action sequences. I thought the story was actually pretty good.
We're getting WORLD WAR Z this December, and we'll know then if the plans for this series of films can come to fruition.. If WORLD WAR Z is successful, we'll see two more movies of the Zompocalypse, and the good news is that if it does wind up being three movies, we'll see more of Max Brooks' setpieces. The Battle of Yonkers, perhaps? Or the Chinese nuclear sub? Or the American trek up north? We could see all sorts of things to fill out the space.
Nordling, out.
