World War Z director talks reshoots and swarming zombies

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

I’m not going to recap all of the troubles WORLD WAR Z has gone through to reach the big screen (just head over HERE for that), but it’s going to be interesting in the coming months to hear the cast and crew talk about it as they do the press rounds for the film, which comes out in June. Today, director Marc Forster is doing the talking with Empire Online, schooling us on the nature of the film’s extensive reshoots (a reported seven weeks) and basically telling us not to worry.

No, seven weeks is not correct. We shot for about four-and-a-half. Reshooting was always normal! …Our reshoots were a little more exposed in the press because we had a different ending. We felt a different ending would serve the movie better. It’s the same if you’re buying a house and you roll out a nice Persian carpet for your living room and you realise it doesn’t really fit.”

That’s a hell of an expensive carpet!

Perhaps more interesting: Forster’s comments about those controversial “swarming” zombies, which most of the world is still not quite sure how to process.

What is interesting is the way the zombies move. I was looking at nature and how ants move. They’re having this feeding frenzy, and when they’re going after the last resources they build this tower of babel, this building of disease. In a sense, [the zombies] are moving fast in a feeding frenzy and need stimulation, otherwise they’re roaming and slow. When a shark smells blood he attacks; otherwise he’s just roaming around.”

The effect is still somewhat… weird, at least from what we can see in the trailers. We’ll all be able to lay judgment on the final product when it opens on June 21st.

WORLD WAR Z’s Mireille Enos