Back in 2013, Brad Pitt-led World War Z opened up to mixed reviews and a stellar box office performance, becoming the highest-grossing zombie film ever.
With a terror-stricken plot that didn’t appeal to everyone but managed to keep the audience invested just enough, the movie was met with a tepid critical reception. But since it churned fairly good numbers, bringing in over $500 million globally, Paramount confirmed a sequel with Pitt onboard. That was ten years ago, and all development associated with a potential World War Z 2 has been stagnant at large. So, where does that leave the zombie thriller? From the looks of it, in the rusty old box of shelved projects.
World War Z 2 – What Happened to the Zombie Sequel?
When the Brad Pitt-led zombie horror hit the cinemas, it was met with overwhelming success at the box office, or so it seemed. While the film did manage to rake in a hefty sum of around $540 million worldwide, it was propped up on a rather exorbitant budget of $190 million, a figure which later shot up to $269 million owing to reshoots and a multitude of other reasons. And that’s excluding the money Paramount put in for the movie’s extensive marketing.
So, while the Marc Forster-directed action/horror film seemed to have fared well for itself, the box-office victory turned out to be a superficial layer of success beneath which lay the bitter reality – World War Z barely managed to break even.
The prospect of a sequel was nonetheless put on the table with 2018’s Jurassic World director Juan Antonio Bayona set to helm World War Z 2. But the Spanish filmmaker stepped down from the director’s chair shortly after reportedly being pressured by the studio to cram the movie’s premiere in a much shorter time span than possible.
David Fincher, however, turned out to be the knight in shining armor, giving the film a director in the absence of Bayona. And all was good once again, only, Paramount decided to scrap Pitt’s zombie sequel entirely in February 2019, with the Gone Girl director still very much attached to the project. Ever since then, there have been no concrete updates about whether or not Fincher’s film would ever see the light of day.
Why The Brad Pitt Sequel Might Not Ever Make It to the Big Screen
The studio clearly faced a plethora of ordeals with the sequel, from budgeting issues and directors who were a no-show to scheduling conflicts concerning the leading man, the list seems to be endless.
Yet another major reason behind the shelving, as per what THR reported, was China’s ban on zombie films which posed an obvious hiccup (and a massive one at that) since China is a key contributor when it comes to driving global box office revenue.
What’s more, Forster, who helmed the first movie, came bearing upsetting news for fans in an interview a few months back. “Regarding World War Z -I don’t think that sequel is coming anytime soon,” he told The Digital Fix.
“We were all lined up to go. We had Fincher, we had a beautiful script, and then it just didn’t happen,” Pitt, 59, told Collider months after Paramount pulled the plug on World War Z 2. Though he lamented over the film’s axing, there’s no saying whether the Mr. & Mrs. Smith star would be still willing to lead the sequel after all these years.
World War Z is available for streaming on Netflix.
Source: The Playlist
