World War Z is a 2013 American action horror film directed by Marc Forster, with a screenplay written by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, and Damon Lindelof, from a story by Carnahan and J. Michael Straczynski, based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Max Brooks. It stars Brad Pitt as Gerry Lane, a former United Nations investigator who travels the world seeking a solution for a sudden zombie apocalypse. The film premiered in London on June 2, 2013, and was chosen to open the 35th Moscow International Film Festival. It premiered in New York and Los Angeles on June 14, and was theatrically released elsewhere in the United States on June 21.
Plot[]
Gerry Lane is a former UN employee who lives with his wife Karin and his two daughters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One day while stuck in traffic, they notice many helicopters and policeman passing by for some reason. When one of the policemen on motorcycles zooms by and breaks off the car's side mirror, Gerry goes out to pick it up, only to notice an explosion in the distance. A policeman tells him to get back in his car when he is suddenly hit by a zooming truck that crashes through the cars. Gerry panics and zooms his car behind the trail of the truck. Everyone in the city starts running and panicking. Their car crashes in the city square and Gerry can hardly hear from the crash, as he exits in the confusing chaos, growls can be slightly heard. When his hearing comes back, he sees people being attacked by people that appeared to be cannibalistic and insane. They appeared to be zombies. He and the family try to run. As they are, Gerry notices a man being bitten by one of the infected, and in just 12 seconds, he becomes a zombie. He and the family get on an RV and leave the city. The view shows the whole of Philadelphia being overrun by zombies as well as other cities worldwide, showing that there is a violent plague that somehow turns people into a zombified state.
As they drive away, Gerry gets a call from an old friend named Thierry Umutoni, a UN deputy Secretary General who could be seen escaping New York. The Lanes go to Newark New Jersey and get supplies from a store. At night, they run from the zombies into an apartment building and take refuge in an apartment with a boy Tommy and his two parents. Over the night, Thierry organizes a helicopter to pick up Gerry in the morning. Once morning hits, they leave the room and run through the violent zombies to the roof where the helicopter arrives. Tommy's mom dies and his dad is zombified. The lanes and Tommy escape to a U.S Navy Vessel in the Atlantic where scientists and military personnel are analyzing the world wide zombie outbreaks. A man named Fassbach says that the plague is a virus and that the development of a vaccine depends on finding the origin. Gerry must help him find the source of the outbreak since he says his family will be removed if he does not come. Gerry says goodbye to his family before he and Fassbach fly to Camp Humphreys, a military base in South Korea. They find out that the infection was introduced to the base by its Doctor, who was ultimately incinerated by a soldier with a lame leg that the infected ignored. They also meet an imprisoned CIA Operative who sold weapons to North Korea (to help fight the infection) He tells them that there is a safe zone in Jerusalem that has been maintained by the Israeli Mossad since before the outbreaks official acknowledgment. As they try to shoot the zombies outside and try to get on an aircraft, Fassbach slips and accidentally shoots himself dead. Only Gerry and the pilot make it out alive and fly to Jerusalem.
Gerry meets Mossad Chief Jurgen Warmbrunn, who says that months earlier he intercepted an Indian military message claiming that Indian troops were fighting the zombies, which they called "Rakshasa". Israel had quarantined Jerusalem, erecting huge walls all around it to create a safe zone allowing survivors to take refuge. As they're in the open next to the walls, many citizens gather and start singing and the loudspeaker poles have loud sounds going all over. As this is heard, outside the walls, the zombies start running to the wall. They climb on top of each other and form a zombie pyramid that goes up and successfully climbs over the wall. The zombies fall down below and the soldiers immediately start shooting at them and the zombies relentlessly chase the running people. Juergen orders some Israeli soldiers to escort Gerry back to his plane. Gerry and the soldiers run from the zombies and through the terrified people. The helicopters try to shoot the zombie pile and the zombies in the city. As they are running, Gerry notices zombies ignoring an old man and an ill boy completely. Gerry and the soldiers run through an alley and then one of the soldiers is bitten on the hand by a zombie. Thinking fast, Gerry chops off the hand and quickly wraps bandages around the stump. The soldier's name is Lieutenant Segen. Gerry carries her and runs to the airport where they board a commercial airliner and take off.
Gerry looks through the window and watches in horror as all of Jerusalem becomes a zombified infestation. He tries to keep Segens's handless arm in bandages during the flight. He is also contacted by Thierry who tells him that the plane is going to a World Health Organization (WHO) Facility outside Cardiff, Wales. When they're almost there, a single zombie is shown to have stowed away onto the plane and turns the rest of the people on board into zombies. After an unsuccessful attempt to block off the doors leading to the section of the plane with the uninfected, Gerry grabs a grenade and blows a hole in the plane that sends all the infected out into the open. The plane crashes and Gerry is knocked out. When he wakes up, he is barely able to move because he has a piece of metal impaled in the right side of his stomach. He and Segen limp to the Who Facility where Gerry passes out. He awakes 3 days later to several WHO doctors in an area of the WHO Facility that isn't overrun with zombies. He explains to them his theory that the zombies don't attack seriously injured or terminally ill people since they would be unsuitable hosts for viral reproduction. He suggests that they test this by infecting somebody with a pathogen from the facility, but the pathogens are stored in a wing that has zombies near it. Gerry, Sagen, and the lead WHO Doctor sneak their way pass the zombies, knowing that they can be attracted by sound. When they make an accidental sound, the zombies start chasing them, and Gerry is separated. The other two escape back to the safe part of the building while Gerry finds the pathogen vault. He goes in and finds the bin with the vial. But as he turns to leave, he sees a zombie is behind the door trying to get in. Gerry decides to inject himself with an unknown pathogen to test his theory. He waits many minutes for the pathogen to take effect. Then he opens the door to find the zombie completely ignoring him. He exits the room and creates a loud noise using a soda machine. As the other zombies run towards Gerry's direction, they all ignore him and he makes it back safely. Gerry has found the type of "zombie camouflage" that can be used for survivors. Later, he is brought back to his family and they hug. Different scenes show how cities worldwide are lost and that the zombie camouflage has bought survivors some time. Gerry says that this war is far from over and they still don't know how it started. He says "Our War Has Just Begun."
Cast[]
- Brad Pitt as Gerald "Gerry" Lane
- Mireille Enos as Karin Lane
- Daniella Kertesz as Segen
- James Badge Dale as Captain Speke
- David Morse as an ex-CIA officer imprisoned at Camp Humphreys
- Fana Mokoena as Thierry Umutoni
- David Andrews as the US Navy Captain in charge of the vessel to which the Lane family is brought
- Sterling Jerins as Constance Lane
- Abigail Hargrove as Rachel Lane
- Peter Capaldi as W.H.O. doctor in Wales
- Pierfrancesco Favino as W.H.O. doctor in Wales
- Ruth Negga as W.H.O. doctor in Wales
- Moritz Bleibtreu as W.H.O. doctor in Wales
- Ludi Boeken as Jurgen Warmbrunn
- Grégory Fitoussi as the C-130 pilot who flies Gerry from South Korea to Israel
Original Ending[]
In this ending, after Gerry Lane and Segen enter the Belarus Airways airplane, the plane flies to Moscow, Russia. When they safely land there, Russian soldiers execute sick and elder passengers and everyone else including Gerry are imprisoned and he loses his phone, preventing him from calling his wife. After being imprisoned for months, Gerry has grown beard and leads a batallion using lobos to fight against zombies. During the battle, they find a zombies' weakness, cold weather makes them move slower. After the battle ends, Gerry finally finds his phone to call his wife Karin. When he calls her, he learns that she has gone to Everglades and Karin's been bartering her body to the Matthew Fox's paratrooper character, who months before had helped Gerry and the kids into that saving helicopter to keep her children alive. Fox's paratrooper character calls Gerry back after Karin hangs up on him, and basically tells him to move on with his life. Gerry refuses and takes his phone and friends and sets off to find Karin. Gerry and his rag tag crew washes up on the Oregon Coast to save his family.
After filming was completed and Marc Forster assembled the first cut of the film, Paramount executives and Brad Pitt did not like the ending and felt that the scene was too bleak. As a result, the ending was rewritten and reshot into the ending where Gerry and Segen landing in Wales after the plane crashes before going to the W.H.O. lab.
Reception[]
The World War Z film has received mixed-to-positive reviews from film critics. Critics praised the film for Brad Pitt's performance and the revival of the zombie genre, although the film was criticized for the ending was criticized for being anti-climatic, outdated zombie CGI, and the departure from the source material. While the film received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics, however, reviews from fans were divisive. Fans mostly criticized the film for the departure from the source material.
Fans criticized the zombies as being the running-type as opposed to the traditional slow ones in the novel. The most heavy criticism came from the film's lack of similarity to the original book. Whereas the novel is about survivors around the world fighting back against zombies to reclaim the world with no heroic characters, the film ended with Gerry Lane saving the world when he tests the pathogen. The film was also criticized for lacking the stories from the novel. For these reasons, the film became controversial among the fanbase.
Follow-ups[]
Video Game[]
The film spawned a video game which takes place in the same universe as the film and follows group of survivors around the world. Unlike the film, the game was received much more positively by fans due to featuring plots similar in nature to the original novel and referencing large amount of events and details in the book.
Cancelled Sequel[]
According to a report in the Los Angeles Times in January 2012, at that time Marc Forster and Paramount Pictures both viewed "World War Z as a trilogy that would have the grounded, gun-metal realism of, say, Damon's Jason Bourne series tethered to the unsettling end-times vibe of AMC's The Walking Dead." Plans for future installments were shelved for a time due to the film's production troubles, but in June 2013, after the successful opening of the film, Paramount announced it was moving ahead with a sequel. In December, it was reported that J. A. Bayona had been chosen to direct the film, and in May 2014 Steven Knight was set to write the script. In May 2015, it was announced the sequel would be released on June 9, 2017, but in January 2016 Paramount announced director Bayona had left the project due to other commitments.
Variety reported in August 2016 that the sequel was not yet in production, but David Fincher had entered negotiations to be the director, and in April 2017 it was reported Fincher was close to a deal to sign on. On February 8, 2017, Paramount announced the sequel had still not started filming and would not be released until 2018, or possibly even 2019.
Fincher was confirmed by Paramount as the director of the sequel in June 2017, with Brad Pitt to play again the role of Gerry Lane. In October 2018, producer Dede Gardner confirmed the sequel would begin filming in June 2019, and there were several months of pre-production and staffing for principal photography in five countries, but, in February 2019, the film was cancelled due to Chinese government's ban on films featuring zombies or ghosts.