We’d start off a post like this by saying that you “can’t keep a good zombie movie down,” but in the case of World War Z it would be far more accurate to say “You can’t keep a mediocre zombie movie and horrendous book adaptation down.” That’s what we were given in 2013’s Brad Pitt-starring World War Z, an adequate zombie epic in terms of spectacle, that nevertheless wasted some incredible source material in the form of Max Brooks’ 2006 book of the same name. Despite a troubled production, the film did make money, so a sequel was expected … it’s just taken forever to get going.
And yet, World War Z 2 is still, still not dead. Despite repeated setbacks and start dates being pushed back by both Pitt and director David Fincher (why does he want to direct this movie again?), it would seem that the key figures involved are still committed to this film getting made. We even have a start date for filming: June 2019. That will give Fincher time to finish up on the second season of Mindhunter, and Pitt to finish Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and clear his schedule. Meanwhile, Dennis Kelly is apparently still fine-tuning the script; a job that is seemingly without end.
What will that script entail, exactly? At the end of the first World War Z, Brad Pitt’s character Gerry Lane had discovered a chemical compound that effectively makes people invisible to the zombie hordes. One would think that’s pretty much all that humanity would need in order to fight back against the undead. Early descriptions of World War Z 2 mentioned that Lane would be searching for “the source of the infection,” but why would that even be necessary now?
Here’s a thought—maybe you could actually follow the book a bit this time around? Have Pitt fly around the world, interviewing people as we see snippets of their stories of how they survived the zombie war. Give Pitt his own starring segment too! If Fincher wanted, this would be his chance to make up for how badly the book was adapted in the first go-round. We know it’s wishful thinking, but we can dream, right?
If World War Z 2 DOES start filming in June of 2019, we can probably expect to see it at some point in 2020, some seven years after the original. We’ll see.