A lot has been said about WORLD WAR Z's troubled shoot, from budgetary issues to the well-documented issues with the ending of the film, but now that the film has been released to favorable reviews, has hit home video and a sequel is in the works, director Marc Forster has opened up about the shoot to Empire, sharing that he's "very, very happy" with the end results and acknowledging that the final movie had a different ending than the one that was planned, stating…
Basically, originally there was a third act that I thought didn't work. As we were shooting we were discussing it and rewriting and rewriting it."
According to what we've previously heard, the third act was due to take Brad Pitt and a small army of zombie killers to Moscow for a final pitched battle, but a change of heart moved the action 1000 or so miles due west for a more intimate Wales-set ending. Forster explains…
“The reason I felt it wouldn’t work is that by that time you have a certain battle fatigue after Israel. After Israel and the plane crash, trying to trump that and make it even bigger wasn’t working in our favor. The problem with a lot of these big movies is you start production and the script isn’t finished. The third act wasn’t fully fleshed out, but we had to rush in to meet the release date.“
If you were hoping to see the original ending, there’s a reason it’s not on the home video releases – the effects work was never completed. Instead, the money was used to reshoot the ending entirely. Says Forster…
“I was very happy that we didn’t finish the third act with visual effects and everything because that would’ve been a huge number, and we used that money to shoot a much simpler ending.”
Hey, if he's happy, we're happy, right? Not really. Less isn't always more and I would've preferred seeing the originally planned ending. But hey, that's just me. I still enjoyed the film as is and am certainly up for a sequel.