Paramount’s World War Z has been gaining notoriety lately, ever since set pics of star Brad Pitt started hitting the Net. The adaptation of author Max Brooks’ ‘oral history of the zombie war’ has always had a question mark hovering over it, since the format of book involved a U.N. employee interviewing survivors of the zompocalypse about their experiences.
That’s a tricky narrative format to translate to film. Director Marc Forster could’ve snagged some great dramatic actors for a movie made in the style of a faux documentary; however, a lot of people figured that the World War Z film would go the route of, say, Interview With a Vampire (also starring Pitt), with U.N. worker Gerry Lane’s (Pitt) survivor interviews being the frame for flashbacks to grisly zombie war action. When fans learned the movie was leaning toward a PG-13 rating, they figured the aforementioned format would still work, only with less grisly zombie war action.
It now appears as though the World War Z movie will be a far departure from Brooks’ novel.
We cited the Paramount press release for our earlier report on World War Z‘s release date, but it was other sites like /Film and Movies.com that first picked up on the bombshell packed in the film synopsis that came with Paramount’s announcement:
“The story revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself.”
Clearly this is a massive change to the story. Brooks’ book explored – among other things – how the world would or wouldn’t be able to cope with a massive disaster like a zombie apocalypse. The sci-fi/horror premise was a great allegorical frame for a lot of relevant political, social and moral questions. This movie is basically your tried-and-true (and often failed) race-against-time action/thriller. You probably wouldn’t even bat an eye if were to lie and say that Roland Emmerich was directing.
This “tweaking” of the story is also a massive change to the character of Pitt’s U.N. employee, who in the book is a man trying to research the global catastrophe to try and gain some perspective on it and what it has done to humanity. In this movie, he’s basically the reluctant hero who must overcome insurmountable odds to save the world (and just maybe… the woman he loves).
Look… This stuff happens all the time in Hollywood. Books, old films, foreign films, comic books, board games, toys – even websites – all have their likeness funneled through the Tinseltown machine before a lot of them get spit out the other end as flat sheets of cinematic bologna. Why pretend to be surprised that it’s happening to this book?
The only question is: Are you still interested in this project? Or is it straying too far from its roots to be worthy of your ticket money?
Fans of the book: is there a particular scene or moment you worry will be missing from the movie?
World War Z will be in theaters on December 21st, 2012.
Source: Paramount
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I don’t know about you guys but as I read WWZ all the different stories from the survivors and the detail they went into would have made the best survival film to date let alone a Zombie film with some substance, well f##k that idea.
Don’t worry fans. A “faithful” version of this book will eventually be made in the next few years either as a TV series or a movie. The book lends itself more towards TV as they already have done such a great job with the comic book series “The walking dead”. Better yet would be if HBO picked it up and did a Sopranos or Game of Thrones treatment on the book. As for the movie, it may be a bomb or a hit, but it can’t help but bring new fans to Brook’s original story.
I hate it…..and yes,its a classic situation where ,as usual,the movie studios wanna make bucks ,selling movies to people who have become to involved in quick fixes to their intellectual needs and see books,even e-books in all formats as antiquated things to be scorned. Pretty brad pitt needs to be seen to carry the movie..its about him and not the story.They ruined a great book.
The book is so amazing! I fell in love after the first few pages.
What makes the book so good is that the author did not rely on zombie violence to make his book shine. They could represent almost any challenge humanity must face as a whole.
The most interesting parts of the book (and often the most horrifying) tell of how humanity’s old ways of living with no regard for one another must be changed if we are going to survive the struggle. It’s full if intimate first hand accounts of the world war Z survivors and all the horrid atrocities they had to overcome just to make it out alive.
The main point if the whole book is if that we can not feed on each other like zombies, we have to unite and work together.
Im afraid that the main point of the book will be lost in all the action and cheap love story melodrama.
I hope I’m wrong. But probably not… Oh well
The book is so amazing! I fell in love after the first few pages.
What makes the book so good is that the author did not rely on zombie violence to make his book shine. They could represent almost any challenge humanity must face as a whole. The most interesting parts of the book (and often the most horrifying) tell of how humanity’s old ways of living with no regard for one another must be changed if we are going to survive the struggle. It’s full if intimate first hand accounts of the world war Z survivors and all the horrid atrocities they had to overcome just to make it out alive.
The main point if the whole book is if that we can not feed on each other like zombies, we have to unite and work together.
Im afraid that the main point of the book will be lost in all the action and cheap love story melodrama.
I hope I’m wrong. But probably not… Oh well
I was CRUSHED when I saw what they’d turned this into. Not at all worth it anymore.
I’m reading the comments and a few sensible ones have been made. This book was never going to lend it’s self to a 2 hr movie. This is my guess.. This movie is the “authors” story. He interiews but we never get his story or why he was qualified to ne the one who did the interviewing. Keep in mind thebook is wtitten 10 years after the war. tryin gto make a movie out of recollected stories would be a mess. Also let’s be clear not all of them would make it in as some are jst not screen worthy.