Friday
17Jul2009
Zombified 'World War Z' Gets Another Writer
Friday, July 17, 2009 at 3:33AM
Paramount and Brad Pitt's Plan B have been developing the rather terrific zombie novel by Max Books called World War Z into a film, and they've changed horses mid-stream. Brooks recently talked to Fangoria and announced that J. Michael Straczynski, the Changeling and Babylon 5 writer who had thrown together one adaptation, had been usurped.
"They say it's a positive move because they're very excited, but the truth is, it's also positive because they just paid him a buttload of money, and [with] the money they paid him, the money they paid Straczynski and the money they've paid me, they've really dug themselves a deep hole, so they better make this thing!"The book isn't a straight narrative, but rather a kind of flowing anthology of survivor accounts from a post-apocalyptic zombie war. Tough to turn that into a movie on its own terms, although it works very well as a book. I hope they don't just spin it into a traditional zombie movie, even though keeping that structure is not really conducive to a movie that's easy to watch.
Colin Boyd | Permalink | in Adaptations, World War Z, Zombies | Print Article | Email Article | 3 Comments | Share Article
Reader Comments (3)
This would be really cool to see on HBO or any other cable site that could turn it into a series done up like a mock-History Channel retrospective about the zombie apocalypse. I don't know how they're going to tackle the book as a standard 1.5 hr movie, though.
I tend to agree with that. It's the narrative that really gives me concern. Great story, great book, but not an easy thing to transfer to a movie as is.
You call that pleased with the change? Brooks is pissed with the change.
Read the quote again, especially the last line:
Positive? Not so much. Cynical, and showing a lack of trust in the Production team? Absolutely.