So the ZRC has been somewhat bitterly bemused at the production process for ‘World War Z’. It was mired in development hell forever, got going eventually due to Brad Pitt’s dogged evangelism, ran into even more production trouble and then was radically trimmed down and altered so that the novel narrative structure and non-traditional protagonist didn’t actually surprise anyone looking to pay six bucks for bad popcorn and zone out for two hours.

Now that ‘World War Z’ is a straightforward action film about Brad Pitt running from Zombies (who, to be fair, are probably disappointed about the story edits too), it looks like there’s enthusiasm for making a bunch more from the misguided:

“That book [the flick is based on the best-selling tome of the same name] is such a thick dense book of so many socio- and political and economic views that says a lot about us as people,” James Badge Dale told me last night at the L.A. premiere of his new crazy scary adventure thriller, The Grey. “So I think we’d like to make 18 more World War Z’s and we’d still have more material because it’s an ongoing story.”

No, actually, Mr. Dale, ‘World War Z’ was a retrospective, having a very definite beginning, middle and end, two actually, one for the larger ‘war’ (more like massacre) and one for the protagonist/chronicler of said war.

The movie, on the other hand? Oy. It sounds like they really made chop suey out of the plot. ‘Ongoing’ probably means they end it on a cliffhanger for crass, exploitative reasons too.

The theatre I see this for the ZRC in better have booze. Lots of booze.

Tags: Max Brooks is a Jerk, Movies

This entry was posted by John Sears on Friday, January 13th, 2012 at 1:52 am and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.