IT has been revealed that Brad Pitt is to take on zombies once more in a sequel to hit movie World War Z, which walked all over the box office despite being critically mauled by viewers. World War Z 2 shall see him take on the role of Gerry Lane once more as he battles a zombie pandemic.
The first film came out in 2013 and underwhelmed audiences who were left disappointed with the adaptation of Max Brook’s bestselling book ‘World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War’. Despite this, it was the highest grossing movie of Pitt’s career.
The public, it seems, just can’t get enough of the zombie apocalypse. Reports are sketchy about the new movie but the studio has set a release date for 2017. Steve Knight is working on the script and it is believed that he will make dramatic changes from the first film. The director is Juan Antonio Bayina, whose previous films include ‘The Impossible’ and ‘The Orphanage.’
The time for the sequel is ripe, as zombies have never been so popular thanks in part to the huge success of TV series ‘The Walking Dead’ that is coming back for its sixth season this October. The first episode of the show’s companion series ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ broke records in August this year by becoming the most watched cable series launch ever with over 10 million viewers.
In Word War Z, United Nations employee Gerry Lane traverses the world in a race against time to stop the zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments, and threatening to destroy humanity itself. The novel itself is a collection of individual accounts narrated by an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission. One of the problems fans had with the movie was setting up Pitt’s character as globe hopping hero, instead of sticking to the novel’s structure. The movie also starred Mireille Enos who is best known for ‘The Killing’ TV series.
Max Brooks is the bestselling author of “World War Z”, “The Zombie Survival Guide” and its graphic companion, “The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks’. He has not written a sequel to World War Z, so there is plenty of speculation about what the plot will be.
“I think they (zombies) reflect our very real anxieties of these crazy scary times. A zombie story gives people a fictional lens to see the real problems of the world. You can deal with societal breakdown, famine, disease, chaos in the streets, but as long as the catalyst for all of them is zombies, you can still sleep,” explains Max on his site www.maxbrookszombieworld.
Brad Pitt previously said that he was excited about the new film and explained that they wanted to make sure the script was right first. Originally it was planned to do a trilogy, so we could well see World War Z 3 following close behind!
