Looks like the Brad Pitt starrer WORLD WAR Z is in troubled waters. With rumors of a troubled production, the Marc Forster (QUANTUM OF SOLACE) film, based on the novel by Max Brooks, is now getting a complete overhaul by Lost and PROMETHEUS scripter Damon Lindelof.
Apparantly, Lindelof’s job will be to focus on the film’s third act, which I always felt was weak after reading J. Michael Straczynski’s script (later reworked by Matthew Michael Carnahan). The novel by Max Brooks is an intricately woven tale that intertwines numerous stories during the zombie apocolypse, making for an exceptionally difficult translation. It’s a great book, but some may argue that it’s nearly unfilmmable in terms of a narrative structure.
So, really, given the difficulty of adapting the source material this isn’t that surprising of news, but you have to wonder if maybe the filmmakers got in over their head a little too late in the game.
The film synopsis goes like this:
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.
This is a very different direction from the book, which leans more toward a journalist collecting stories about the outbreak, rather than being in a race against time to stop it.
The recent shift in a release date from December 2012 to June 2013 should give them time for the rewrite and reshoots, which the studio hopes to begin by September-October timeframe.
With the recent changes made to G.I. JOE: RETALIATION, both in terms of release date and reshoots, this seems like another nail in the coffin for Paramount, who aren’t necessarily on a roll these days.
WORLD WAR Z is currently slated to open on June 21, 2013.
What do you guys think?