Warning, some potential World War Z spoilers follow...
Paramount Pictures' new trailer for their upcoming zombie Apocalypse actioner World War Z hit theaters today after becoming available online earlier this week. If you haven't seen it yet, take a look below. We were able to attend an event recently where producer/star Brad Pitt and director Marc Forster were on hand to talk about, and screen several sequences from, the film. Now that the latest trailer has gone wide we're able to share some details from the event as well as our impressions of the portions of the film we were able to see.
Pitt introduced the footage from what he referred to as their "funky little zombie effort" by saying that he set out to make a movie his sons "could see before they get old." Adding, "As you will see, we got a little carried away." The actor also quipped that four years ago he knew nothing about zombies and wasn't really interested, while now he would qualify himself as an "expert who can answer any questions people may have" about the undead monsters.
As you can see in the trailer - which we screened in 3D at the event - these are no ordinary zombies, though. These zombies are more of what Forster calls, "a force of nature." They are a swarm of raging hunger who are nearly impossible, at least from what we saw, to stop. Quick note on the 3D: It's a post conversion that looked mostly fine. It wasn't the best use of the medium I've ever seen, but certainly not the worst either. The small sample didn't indicate that it did much to either to add or detract from the film as a whole.
Adapted from the novel of the same name by Max Brooks, World War Z revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop a pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself. The book, inspired by The Good War, an oral history of World War II by Studs Terkel, is told as a series of first person accounts of the "zombie war". It often acts as an allegory for our contemporary geopolitical circumstances, which Pitt has previously said is part of what attracted him to the project.
"We were really intrigued by the idea of it," Pitt says of the book. "In it we found much more than a zombie film, we found this global Apocalypse. This zombie epidemic as a world-wide pandemic, and that really interested us. I guess our first problems were how can we crack a book that travels around the globe and tells multiple vignettes? And two, how do we reinvent the zombies and originate our zombies in a field that has been done and done really well?" The actor concluded by saying what we would see was their answer to those questions.
Marc Forster and Brad Pitt on the set of World War Z.
What we saw also may also have been the answer to some well-known production issues. Originally scheduled for a December 2012 release, World War Z went back into production in June of 2012 for seven weeks of additional shooting. Damon Lindelof was tapped to do some rewrites, but ran out of time and was replaced with Cabin in the Woods director Drew Goddard.
The footage that was screened for us was nearly wall-to-wall action. The emphasis and take-away was clearly meant to be that this would be a full on, balls-to-the-wall, adrenaline rush. Forster famously directed Quantum of Solace, which many contend lacked in the action department. One got the feeling that this screening was meant, in part, to communicate that that would not be an issue in World War Z. It's unclear if the reshoots were done in part to strengthen that portion of the film. What was once refereed to a political film set in a zombie context is now being positioned more as an actioner, seemingly though. The good news is that the action, from what we saw, looks great.
When asked about the reshoots, specifically, Forster said, "We felt the ending wasn’t what we wanted it to be and could be better and we showed it to the studio and us as the filmmakers agreed and made a proposal and they agreed and we went back and did some additional shooting and we are really happy now with the result." The director went on to say that what they have ended up with - with about two weeks to go from picture lock - is now a far different, and much more powerful ending.
The specifics of the shift were, not surprisingly, left rather vague. In fact, very few story details were revealed at the screening. What we do know is that the book answers the question - "what happened?" - which is somewhat rare for a zombie tale. The film may, or may not. It was originally conceived as a trilogy, though, and when asked if that is a direction they'd like to go, Forster said, "Definitely, there could be more story to tell, yes." So even if the why of it all is revealed at the film's conclusion, one imagines that the door will be left ajar for more zombie mayhem to come.
Continue on for more on the super-fast zombies and what you can expect...
Source : ign[dot]com
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