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Paramount Scheduling Seven Weeks of Reshoots for 'World War Z'

by Ethan Anderton
June 4, 2012
Source: Daily Mail

Back in March the disappointing news surfaced that the eagerly anticipated adaptation of World War Z was pushed back from a December release date this year to a June 2013 slot instead. There was no indication that fans should be worried, especially because that just gave post-production more time to make sure the film was top notch. Well, now we might have some evidence to the contrary as The Daily Mail (via AICN) has learned that the Marc Forster directed zombie apocalypse film starring Brad Pitt is getting an additional seven weeks of shooting on location in Budapest. This comes after filming wrapped last summer.

It's not clear if other stars like Matthew Fox, James Badge Dale or any other bigger stars on the film are also returning for reshoots, but this doesn't sounds like good news. Reshoots aren't always unplanned or automatically spell doom for a film, but seven weeks is a long time to make some changes. In fact, entire films have been shot in that amount of time. Paramount seems to be lacking a lot of confidence in their films lately as they also just delayed G.I. Joe: Retaliation nine months for reshoots that will give Channing Tatum a bigger role in a sequel that was testing pretty poorly with audiences.

It's not clear if there are problems with the film, changes are being made to make the film more loyal to the book (apparently the adaptation was changing elements up quite a bit) or if maybe they're making some changes to allow for the hoped trilogy we heard about earlier this year, but we're still excited to see how this flick turns out and hope everything comes together smoothly.

Filed under Development, Movie News

From around the web:

http://movieviral.com Daniel Koelsch

Damn, Paramount has some problems
http://www.williammize.com/ William Mize

For me, the problem with this product started when they decided to ditch the J Michael Straczynski script and brought in a new writer.
- LosZombies
  
  Red light went off in my head the second I read about that. I heard Straczynski's script was freakin amazing...even called Oscar worthy by some. (A bit of an exaggeration in my opinion, but still a hell of a compliment)
son_et_lumiere

reshoots aren't necessarily a bad thing. but *7 weeks'* worth? in descriptions to date, Forster seemed to have moved a long way from the source novel's approach, an approach that was one of its key differentiators and a contributor to its success, and the reason i enjoyed it so much. sounds like they're bailing out a floundering ship. here's hoping they can right it.
SuicidalOptimist

I was pretty worried when I first heard about them adapting the book as it seemed really difficult to me to bring the documentary style of it to the screen. I mean, it's not like there is one singular protagonist that you actively root for, because it's just a collection of eyewitness accounts from all over the world (and space). Well, apparently they were thinking the same when they changed it to a regular zombie survival story, which I considered a big bummer to begin with. I loved the book because it was different in its approach and forced the reader to puzzle things together in their heads as they follow the narrator along in his quest to find out how everything started, progressed and eventually ended. Ahem, long story short, I am losing more and more faith in this project, which makes me sad. I hate to see movies based on my favorite books fail (unfortunately that seems to happen all the time). I hope they can find a way to still pull it off.
http://twitter.com/Dr_Interesting Snev De la Fontaine

One has to realize though that 7 weeks of shooting is expensive. Are they that desperate or that motivated to plan this much new shooting?
grimjob

Well, I have a bad feeling about this, but I loved the book and am keeping my fingers crossed...
- LosZombies
  
  Finger crossing is futile bro, I lost ALL hope on this movie. I'll just stick with my beloved book... :/
  - grimjob
    
    You're probably right. I think I'll read that again.
doubtful

No one in Budapest has heard anything about this, not one thing. And the Budapest film community is small and nothing is a secret. I don't think this is true. It seems like pure speculation and gossip to me. Has this been confirmed by the studio or by a reputable source? The Daily Mail is trash 100% trash and is not a "source".
Akirakorn

I couldn't read the article, kept laughing at the perfect picture used for the article. Poor Brad, looks like he making "7 Years in Reshoots", although at this point I think he'd be happier climbing a mountain with a bipolar werewolf who knows magic.
castingcouch

Somebody's getting fired at Paramount...
NickInTheCloset

And it's a FAIL.
LosZombies

To be honest, this project was dead to me the second they released details on this adaptation, and learned that it was N O T H I N G like the book at all. I mean hell, even Brad's character isnt named Max Brooks! It brings alot of pain to see one of the finest books Ive read being turned into what is looking to be absolute shit, and this 7 week reshoot solidifies that fear. I mean 7 weeks? Might as well re-shoot the whole fucking thing...
The Moo

If it is true, and being done in an attempt to fix an ailing project, then the suspicions of many loyal fans of the book from the very beginning may be coming to fruition. That, this really should have been produced as a television series. HBO's answer to The Walking Dead perhaps? If the right people were onto this years ago, I am sure it would have been out well before AMC's series. Perhaps taking the mantle as "the" defining television zombie series. Oh well.
Gffgf

I'm working on the film now and the reason they are doing reshoots is because Brad Pitt isn't happy with the way he looks in the footage so they are changing his look.
tir na nog

does not bode well,the book deserves a great film,hopefully they get it together
http://twitter.com/Coelacanth1938 Martin Evans

I'm going to try to explain the problems with the movie as best as I can for everybody who hasn't read the book from the point of somebody who has read two of the scripts. The zombies in the book shuffle. They're as fast as the zombies in the George Romero movies, which are a little bit slower than the zombies in the Walking Dead and a LOT slower than the zombies in the Dawn of the Dead remake. The zombies in the footage filmed for the movie are runners. They appear to be faster than the running zombies in the Dawn of the Dead remake. And if you're bit by one, you turn into a zombie in SECONDS. Shambling zombies are actually pretty tough customers. They're hard to kill. Fast zombies are almost impossible to kill. The book establishes a believable methodology on how to deal with shambling zombies. But Brad Pitt's fast zombies blows that methodology out of the water and the movie no longer true to the book. Running zombies make it impossible to win. The next big beef is Brad Pitt himself. The book World War Z is made up of dozens of accounts of the zombie war as told to the author from dozens of different people. There's some great stuff there. There's a mom who barely got out of San Diego alive with her kids, there's a bodyguard who ran for his life when his celebrity employer's plans went FUBAR, there's a feral girl, a downed pilot in Louisiana, an artist in a wheelchair that leads a neighborhood watch, a politician who is trying to get more bang for the buck out of limited resources, a rogue Chinese Submarine commander, and maybe the best chapter: A dog handler (makes me tear up everytime I think about it). Brad Pitt is rewritten as the hero of every chapter. The movie stops being about what other people went through, and starts being about Brad Pitt (Real actors try to convince you that they are the characters they are portraying, but movie stars try to convince you that the characters they are portraying are them). And somewhere along the line I guess, Brad Pitt picks up a dog *Shrugs*
FLASHMAN

The narrative seemed too episodic from the very start, and if they have no new way to show zombies, (& my observations from the set suggest that they do not) then this is a potential stinker of Biblical proportions; what next; Russell Crowe as Noah?