The 2013 film World War Z isn’t very popular, but it made a lot of money at the box office, pulling in over $540 million worldwide. So of course a sequel was put into development. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom director J.A. Bayona worked on the project for a year before stepping away because they couldn’t quite figure out the story, despite having great set pieces in mind. Then the sequel very nearly went into production in 2019 with Fight Club director David Fincher at the helm – but the studio decided it to scrap it over budgetary issues. Now, during an interview with GQ Magazine UK, Fincher revealed that he’s glad his World War Z sequel didn’t get made because it would have been similar to HBO’s TV series adaptation of the video game The Last of Us – and the TV series format allows The Last of Us to handle the idea better than they would have been able to in a feature.
Fincher said, “Well, it was a little like The Last of Us. I’m glad that we didn’t do what we were doing, because The Last of Us has a lot more real estate to explore the same stuff. In our title sequence, we were going to use the little parasite… they used it in their title sequence, and in that wonderful opening with the Dick Cavett, David Frost-style talk show.“
Fincher went on to reveal that there is “some talk” of a new World War Z project that would stick closer to the source material, Max Brooks’ novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.
In case you’re not familiar with The Last of Us, that story is set years after a fungal plague wiped out much of humanity, transforming most into vicious zombie-like monsters, the story follows Joel, who’s living in a militarized quarantine zone. He has a close relationship with Tess, who operates in the black market of this community. Together, they’ve become known by the local criminal underworld for their ruthlessness. On a mission to reclaim their stolen guns, they run into the leader of the Fireflies, a resistance group, who tasks them with smuggling a young girl named Ellie out of the zone. This mission soon becomes much more than they were prepared for.
While the director is fine with his World War Z sequel going by the wayside, the film’s would-be star Brad Pitt praised the script’s “really strong story” while would-be co-star Mireille Enos said it had “a beautiful script”.
The first World War Z was directed by Marc Forster from a script written by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, Damon Lindelof, and J. Michael Straczynski. The film follows former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop a pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself.
Do you wish Fincher’s World War Z sequel had been made, if only so we could see just how similar it would have been to The Last of Us? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.