Sci-fi thrillers and zombie movies are by far the most appreciated genre when it comes to mass-market commercial films. And undoubtedly, Brad Pitt’s World War Z, based on the best-selling book by Max Brooks, immediately pops up in our head.
But while it was easy for Paramount Pictures to give the movie a green light, it was equally difficult to get World War Z to the big screen. Experiencing all sorts of turmoil and even a rise in budget, the movie struggled mightily in its journey to the theaters.
World War Z‘s Original Climax Scene Was Edited
Venturing from the world of drama to zombie apocalypse, Brad Pitt signed the 2013 horror action World War Z. Based on the best-selling book by Max Brooks, the movie took six years to develop and shoot as it initially went through different writers, faced major changes, and several weeks of reshoots.
Apparently, an extensive portion of the film shot in Budapest was one of the most expensive but dull scenes that underwent reshoots. According to a discussion with EW, Brad Pitt explained how he initially signed the movie because he wanted to explore weighty sociopolitical ideas within the confines of a zombie action movie. But eventually, the climax scene not only turned into an expensive one, but also uninspiring.
“At the time I was really interested in a more political film. [But] we got bogged down in it; it was too much to explain. It gutted the fun of what these films are meant to be.”
The initial climax scene showed Pitt travelling to Russia and fighting off swarms of zombies. But this particular scene had a lot of expensive carnage which ended up increasing the budget of the film, and the scene wasn’t even worthy. Further, it was also believed that the character details of World War Z were getting lost in all the mayhem. Thus, eventually, they had to reshoot the entire scene and edit out the original climax.
Brad Pitt’s Zombie Movie Struggled With Financing
Even before Paramount Pictures took the initiative to shoot and edit out the expensive climax scene from World War Z, the movie struggled with financing. Way before reshoots shot up the budget of the film, significantly, it was intended to be costlier than the average zombie movie.
However, despite initially planning on creating an expensive zombie movie, Paramount Pictures eventually felt the movie was too expensive to finance and release. Thus, the studio started seeking a co-financier for World War Z. Apparently, the tumultuous production of the blockbuster involving reshoots, re-writes, and editing, faced a budget that ballooned from $125M to over $170M.
Paramount Pictures felt the project could be scrapped if another production company didn’t join in to finance its rising budget. That’s when Skydance Productions came as a savior for Brad Pitt’s movie and signed a co-financing deal with Paramount Pictures, to cover the budget and ensure the movie could go forward into production.
Eventually, through struggles and turmoils, Brad Pitt’s 2013 zombie apocalypse World War Z, made it to the theatres and amassed $540M against its $190M estimated budget.
