Max Brooks' World War Z(ombies)

[Cody]

Forster joins in Paramount's 'War' (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117995840.html?categoryid=1236&cs=1)

Paramount has set "Quantum of Solace" director Marc Forster to helm "World War Z," based on the Max Brooks bestselling novel about a worldwide infestation of flesh-eating zombies.

"Changeling" scribe J. Michael Straczynski is writing the screenplay, and Brad Pitt's Plan B is producing.

Brooks -- the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft -- wrote a detailed tale in which a researcher for the U.N. Postwar Commission interviews survivors from countries all over the world, 10 years after the crisis, to gather a first-person post-mortem on a war that obliterated every country on the map.

Forster is unlikely to return for another James Bond installment.

As for "WWZ," "The genre always fascinated me, and when they pitched it to me, it reminded me of the paranoid conspiracy films of the '70s like 'All the President's Men,' " Forster told Daily Variety.

Par bought the book for Plan B in 2006, and it is one of several high-profile projects for the company headed by Pitt

[Just Jeans]

I've had this book on my Amazon Wishlist for a really long time. Hope I can get around to reading it prior to the film release.

[Cody]

Moriarty reviewed the script (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/36168) back in March.

I am weary of all things zombie.

One of the reasons I am drawn to horror as a genre is because of the versatility of it. You can comment on almost any social situation or offer observations on any facet of daily life using horror, if you just figure out how to bend the various tropes of the genre to your purpose. Or, if you want, you can just scare the shit out of someone. Either or, really.

The best horror films are the ones that do both, and I think they are the films that not only endure, but that actually push the genre forward as a whole. Zombie films have certainly offered up some great examples of that type of horror film over the years. The Romero movies, for example. And there’s a film opening in limited release around the country right now called AMERICAN ZOMBIE that does some very smart things with the conventions of the zombie film as well. But for the most part, I am tired of seeing people make the same film over and over, and it takes a lot to get me interested in yet another zombie story.

When Max Brooks published WORLD WAR Z a few years ago, I couldn’t help but notice. It’s a beautifully written book that has a fantastic central conceit, and as much as I loved reading it, I was skeptical about a film adaptation. It seemed like it would probably be an excuse to do a big-budget lowest-common-denominator horror film.

Hats off, then, to the folks at Plan B, which is Brad Pitt’s production company. They were the ones who optioned the novel, and they hired J. Michael Straczynski to adapt it, fresh off his success on THE CHANGELING.

Now, with THE CHANGELING coming out this November as a Clint Eastwood-directed prestige picture, JMS is finally poised for that breakthrough in features that he hasn't had yet. I hear Eastwood’s movie really works.

Now who's going to step up and direct WORLD WAR Z and turn it into the Oscar bait it should be? Peter Jackson? Sam Raimi? This demands a big name who can handle a big picture. This isn’t just a good adaptation of a difficult book... it’s a genre-defining piece of work that could well see us all arguing about whether or not a zombie movie qualifies as “Best Picture” material.

The book is an oral history of the great zombie wars, compiled by a nameless editor as part of a government report. The book is all of his unfiltered data, since much of it was censored from the official report. That’s all the narrative that the book offered, but it was enough for JMS to use, and the result is much sadder than I would have expected. In the first five pages, we see GERRY LANE collecting stories, and the first two interviews are with a flight attendant and a border guard. Both manage to play as horror shock beats, but the way they’re told also sets the tone right away... JMS is after the human truth underneath the horror, and in a way, that makes it much, much harder to take.

The world of the film reminds me of CHILDREN OF MEN on the page. Realistic but set in the near-future, in the aftermath of the zombie wars. We see a flashback to Gerry being given his assignment to write a report about “where the system worked, where it didn’t, how and in what ways the various organizational infrastructures failed.” It’s a politically shitty job because no one wants to know that they were responsible for anything that went wrong. Gerry’s hesitant because it’s going to take at least six months away from his family, just as the world is starting to right itself. He takes the job, and as he travels to his first interview, we see how hard travel has become. I hate going through airport security these days, but at least I don’t have to strip naked and subject myself to a blood test. Yet.

JMS does a great job of etching the details of a world that has already faced its darkest moments and is now trying to put things back in order. His first stop is China, and right away, he can see that it’s not going to be an easy job. His first subject, Dr. Tsai, is supposed to be interviewed through a “translator,” despite the fact that he speaks flawless English.

Tsai’s account of his first encounter with zombies at New Dachang is awful and horrific, and right away, it’s apparent that a combination of bureaucracy and military strategy is responsible for a sort of passive evil, and Tsai feels enormous guilt about it. He leads Gerry to his next interview, which leads him to his next, and one of the things that the script does so well is depict survivors who are starting to wonder if survival is a victory of any kind. There’s a story about black market organs that is just brutal, an off-the-record conversation with a CIA friend, and an insane beach sequence that I can’t wait to see on film. All in the first 50 pages.

Right now, I’m dying to know who’s planning to make this film. I haven’t heard a director’s name attached to it yet, and that astounds me. This was already done, felt like, ready to be filmed, and I’m curious if more work’s been done since this April 2007 draft.

But whatever the case, I love this script. Love every dark, somber, upsetting page of it. This is a horror epic, a serious, sober-minded adult picture waiting to be made, and it’s one of the best pieces of screenwriting craft I’ve encountered in a while. It’s not often I get excited by the actual words on the page as a read, but JMS pulled it off here, and I hope some badass filmmaker steps up to the challenge he laid down in the very, very near future.

[Just Jeans]

Having seen Quantum of Solace, do you think Marc Forster has got the skill to deliver the goods, Cody?

[jasonlives13]

I think this could be too difficult a film to make for marc forster, it should have a big name to helm it, its not just a horror its a deep story, about different peoples reactions to it

[Cody]

Having seen Quantum of Solace, do you think Marc Forster has got the skill to deliver the goods, Cody?

I think Forster is a good, adaptable director. All of his movies are quite different from each other. I haven't read WWZ, though, so I don't fully know what he'll be dealing with. He's a top quality choice in theory, I do like the idea of him doing it based on Moriarty's script review.

[Rich]

The World War Z novel was awesomer then awesome! I read the whole thing in Borders and will pick up a hard cover copy one day. It is the ultimate zombie novel (true George A. Romero worthy material). The film has potential to be the same. They certainly have the right director for that kind of project. I'm interested.

[Rick]

Two things this movie needs to do the book justice:
1. The right director, haven't seen the new Bond so I don't know anything about Marc Forster.
2. A huge budget. There is everything from single person encounters to large-scale military battles.
Loved the book, I really hope the movie gets the right treatment.

[Geomonic]

I've never heard of this book before, but having done a little research it seems like it has a decent plot. Worth picking up?

[Rick]

Very much.

[happycampertwo]

I loved the book, this is definitely something I'm looking forward to. I've always thought it would be cool to see the Battle of Yonkers unfold on screen.

[Cody]

Screenwriter (http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2008/12/03/j-michael-straczynski-on-world-war-z-the-scale-of-what-were-doing-here-is-phenomenal/) speaks (http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=8715)

Screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski spoke with MTV recently about his adaptation of Max Brooks' World War Z, the zombie epic directed by Quantum of Solace's Marc Forster that's set up at Paramount.

The film is a detailed account in which a researcher for the U.N. Postwar Commission interviews survivors from countries all over the world, 10 years after the crisis, to gather a first-person post-mortem on a zombie war that obliterated every country on the map.

"The fictional concept of the book is that its written by someone with the UN, so let's tell that story," the writer explains of his approach. "Let's show the book being written. We follow this guy all over the world as he goes on these interviews, and he has his own personal story as well. You're cutting between the past and the present, how he got to this point."

“It has that international feel to it, and because it goes backward and forward in time, we can cherry-pick our favorite moments in the book,” continued Straczynski. “Some of it is crazy in scale. It’s huge. It’s as political as the book was. And it ends with that book being completed.”

He adds it will be unlike anything we've seen in the sub-genre. "Most zombie movies to this point have been small, focusing on a few people in a house. And this has got real scare. You're in India with hundreds of boats trying to get out of there with a tidal wave of zombies. The scale of what we’re doing here is phenomenal."

[Spook]

I just hope there isn't too much CGI to plague the film, and that it's at least done well. I don't want to watch this if it turns out to be Resident Evil-esque. Book was bitchin', though.

[Just Jeans]

I don't imagine they could realize a "tidal wave of zombies" without some sort of digital manipulation.

[Scarecrow]

CGI is a tool liek any other, and there's nothign wrong in using it, it's just about HOW it's used. Cool to hear JMS is having some major Hollywood success. I've followe dihm my whole life, from The Real Ghostbusters through Babylon 5. :p


- Scarecrow

[The One and Only]

I got and read the book over the Christmas season, and had to say I enjoyed. Although other than the story of the people who went to Canada to camp out, and the fate of the whales in a post-WWZ world. I didn't find the book all that scary, unlike Brian Keene's novels The Rising, City of the Dead, and Dead Sea, which left me feeling a major creep factor after reading them.:eek: It just seemed a wee bit on the dry side. Hopefully the flick will impart the hebbie jeebies much like the Dawn of the Dead remake did when showing events.

Anywho, to as why I'm here, I found some rather hellacool concept art:evil: (http://www.joblo.com/arrow/index.php?id=15382) for the flick portraying the infamous "Battle of Yonkers". Hopefully we'll get to see when the military starts dropping the fuel-air bombs on the zombies as they overrun the Army's position. We'll see the lungs hanging out of the zombies' mouths from being ripped out by the air-sucking effect of the bomb's deployment.:lmao:

[Just Jeans]

I did a blind buy with The Rising at Books-A-Million two days ago, although I've got reasons aside from the content for doing so. I'll be reading it in February, I hope.

[Cody]

Max Brooks Talks ‘World War Z' Movie (http://www.fearnet.com/news/interviews/b18887_exclusive_max_brooks_talks_lsquoworld.html)

What can you tell us about the film adaptation of your zombie universe?

Paramount just renewed the option for World War Z, for half the time and twice the money, so that might signal interest. We still got our director, Marc Forster, who's raring to go. Were all waiting on Matt Carnahan's new draft, which should come in a month or so. Once that comes in then I think it probably will have to be tweaked and brought to the studio but we're sort of zeroing in on that moment where Paramount has to say yes or no.

Budget-wise, what will the scale of World War Z be?

That's a good question, because I think the size of the book, the scope of the book, makes it hard to produce, in that this thing's gotta be done right or it just can't be done. You can't do a cheap and dirty World War Z. It's a world war, and I think that makes studio executives nervous. I think it limits its options, so that's running against it.

[The One and Only]

Didn't Brooks say that he was basically disowning the flick a few months ago, due to all the changes the studio, and director wanted for it ? Or was he pulling our collective legs ?

[Just Jeans]

He may have been making a power play to get the thing sorted out closer to his initial vision. If he alienates the film's core audience before it even begins to film, Paramount would be up the duff. That's could be why they're redrafting the script.

[Cody]

I can't find anything about him disowning it at any point.. The closest I saw is this post from his site (http://maxbrooks.com/news/category/world-war-z/), which is more an admission of being uninformed.

At every book signing, someone always asks what’s going on with the movie version of “World War Z.” Who’s directing it, who’s going to star, and, most importantly, when is it coming out? I don’t mind answering these questions, but I feel bad that I don’t have much to tell. I’m not involved in the making of “World War Z: the movie.” My participation ended when Paramount Pictures optioned the rights to the book. That’s usually how it works in Hollywood, and it’s not the worst way to operate. Writing a book is very different than writing a movie; especially because the latter is extremely collaborative. Sometimes an author can do both. I can’t. I don’t play well with others. As a friend, husband, father and citizen, I firmly believe in the ideals of democracy. But when it comes to art, get the fuck out of my way. So they didn’t offer me the job, and I wouldn’t have taken it, and I think everybody will be happier in the end.

Here’s what I can tell you about the progress of the WWZ movie adaptation:

-Brad Pitt’s movie company, “Plan B,” bought the movie rights (through their deal with Paramount) after a bidding war with Leonardo DiCaprio’s company, Appian Way. That was almost 4 years ago.

-J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Changeling, Jeremiah, and whole lot of other AWESOME STUFF), was the first screenwriter on the project. He wrote the first two drafts of the script, although I think there might be a third draft somewhere out there. I’ve only read the first draft, and I can say that, as the protective, uncompromising author of the book, it was a genuine masterpiece.

-The new screenwriter is Matt Carnahan (The Kingdom, State of Play). Anyone in Hollywood will tell you that most movies go through half a dozen screenwriters before a movie ever gets made. For everyone that’s credited, there might be two or three more that are brought in to do discreet ‘polishes.’ (Any wonder why I didn’t want the job?) I don’t know Matt’s work very well, although. I can say that he’s one of the hottest, highest paid screenwriters in Hollywood, and bringing him onboard speaks volumes in studio confidence.

-Marc Forster (Kite Runner, Monster’s Ball, Quantum of Solace), has signed on as the movie’s director. He has a ‘development deal’ which means that he now oversees the progress of the script. He came on after JMS had already written several drafts. In his words, the story is “still far from realization.” Right now he’s working with Carnahan on a new draft. I’m not sure when that will be completed.

And this is all I know.

Will this movie get made? Who knows. The odds are against it, but the odds are against any movie getting made. What helps is the continued enthusiasm for the project. Paramount has already renewed the option for another two years (one year left now), and hiring such a high profile writer as Carnahan is always a good sign. What also helps is the fact that Paramount has gone through more regime changes than a Banana Republic, and the World War Z is still in the mix. What hurts is the sheer size of the movie. World War Z is just that, a WORLD WAR! You can’t make this kind of movie on the cheap. It’s gotta be massive, epic, with the kind of budget that scares the hell out of anyone holding the studio purse strings. Only a few of these movies are made a year, and if one of them bombs, it can kill the careers of anyone involved. You can understand why those at the helm are being cautious. Sometimes a movie can spend 20 years in development (”I Am Legend” anyone?). Who knows what will happen.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

I’m always happy to answer your questions, but truthfully, you’ll get better answers if you ask those directly involved. Marc Forster, Matt Carnahan, the folks at Plan B and Paramount all have phone numbers and email addresses. They can all answer your questions better than I.

[Rick]

I can only assume we'll start getting more news on this soon now that Brad Pitt is apparently going to star in it.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/17808/brad-pitt-in-world-war-z-

Brad Pitt is officially attached to star in the film adaptation of Max Brooks' "World War Z" for Paramount Pictures and Plan B reports MTV News.

Set a decade after a virus has turned much of the planet's population into zombies, the story follows a journalist interviewing subjects from around the world about their experiences during the 'zombie war'. The book fuses elements of political satire, war and survival horror as it explores how various nations, governments and individuals respond to the crisis.

Paramount has also apparently optioned the movie rights to two more of his projects, including "The Zombie Survival Guide" and "The zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks." Marc Forster ("Quantum of Solace") has been attached to direct.

[Cody]

This movie is finally filming, with Brad Pitt as "a researcher for the U.N. Postwar Commission interviews survivors from countries all over the world, 10 years after the crisis, to gather a first-person post-mortem on a war that obliterated every country on the map."

The rest of the cast includes Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale, Matthew Fox, Ed Harris and Julia Levy-Boeken.

Pictures: Pitt on set (http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=78693).

[Cody]

Scratch two (http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/matthew-fox-and-ed-harris-have-split-from-world-war-z)

It was pretty exciting to hear that Matthew Fox and Ed Harris would be joining Brad Pitt for WORLD WAR Z. Yes, you just caught a "was" in there. Seems that both actors have dropped out of the project.

Apparently Fox's prior commitment to I, ALEX CROSS with Tyler Perry creates a scheduling issue.

What's Harris' excuse? According to the report from Vulture they are unsure as to why Harris is stepping off the film. The only thing that the actor has lined up is Beth Henley’s Pulitzer-winning play The Jacksonian and that doesn't start until next February.

[Just Jeans]

I was about to say how cool it was that Fox was in this film. Damn.

[Cody]

Bryan Cranston is in the cast and there's a release date (http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=20429): December 21, 2012.

[The One and Only]

^To be slaughtered by Hobbits.:ballshot:

[WesReviews]

WWZ to be a trilogy?

From the LA Times...

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.

I'll be passing on this one though, for two reasons...

1) A PG-13 zombie movie? Are you kidding?

2) Director Marc Forster. Quantum of Solace is more than enough to make me gunshy about seeing another action-oriented film of his.