World War Z
Any of you guys read? I do. Nothing like a good book. One of my favorite novels of the last couple of years has to be “World War Z,” written by Max Brooks. It was a fantastically original take on the classic Zombie genre. The book was written as a series of interviews, family stories and first hand accounts of what happened during the Zombie war. First outbreak, the fall of man, our rise and eventual victory over the Zombies. Each story, told by different people all around the world, slowly tells the tale. The stories interlock, discuss different points of view on the same events. It was simply amazing. But we don’t cover books here at movie guys, we do movies. So, as if you didn’t know already, we are close to getting a big screen adaptation of “World War Z.”
Marc Forster, director of the upcoming “Quantum of Solace,” was selected as the director for the project being put together by Brad Pitt’s Plan B productions and Paramount. They selected J. Michael Straczynski, writer of the recent “Changeling” and the writer of the upcoming “Forbidden Planet” reboot/sequel. He is really well known in the sci-fi world for his work on “Babylon 5.” Personally, I don’t think there is a better person out there to write the script for this project!
Of course, it is still in the very beginning stages of development. Things could change easily, but I really hope they keep Straczynski on board for this. His presence gives me confidence this could be good, and I need that. I’ve read the book, it was amazing. But how will it look on the big screen? How do you make a film about a book that is basically the accounts of numerous different people all around the world? Are they just going to make a movie on the concept of the book? Will they take the stories and put them together to form a straight up Zombie war movie? Or will they find a way to show that each bit of the story comes from someone different. Anyone who has read this book can tell you what I am about to say. The book was great because it wasn’t just a Zombie horror novel. It was drama. It revolved around the very concepts of family and humanity. It was personal. And in the end, without giving away anything, I can say you learn that it is really all about how people all over the world banded together. People realized that it wasn’t about you or me, it was about us! Powerful stuff. This isn’t your average zombie movie. There are subjects analyzed here that have not been done before in the history of the genre. They need to maintain that aspect of the novel to really make a movie that pays homage to the novel. If they can do that, they could have a really special movie here.