At long last, Brad Pitt’s World War Z sequel is finally seeing some undead momentum.
Oscar winner Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front, Conclave) has boarded the Paramount project as director and executive producer, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Pitt often likes to team back up with filmmakers he’s worked with in the past, and Berger is no exception. The two recently wrapped on A24’s The Riders, a psychological thriller based on Tim Winton’s 1994 novel of the same name.
In addition to returning as globetrotting United Nations investigator Gerry Lane, Pitt will also serve as producer alongside Plan B colleagues Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. The script—based on Max Brooks’s 2006 oral history of the zombie apocalypse—hails from Dennis Kelly, who adapted Matilda the Musical into a feature film.
Helmed by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace), World War Z opened in theaters on June 21, 2013, and closed out its global box office run with over half a billion dollars.
The $190 million blockbuster endured a troubled road to the big screen via extensive rewrites and reshoots. By the time it released, no less than three screenwriters (Matthew Michael Carnahan, Damon Lindelof and Drew Goddard) were credited for a major studio tentpole.
“One of the greatest myths of my personal life is that, somehow, I am connected to the World War Z movie,” Brooks told SYFY Wire in a 2020 phone interview. “I’m not kidding when I say I literally have more power to elect the next president of the United States, because at least I get a vote…The last I heard, it was dead in the water. And then I think I read online somewhere that one of the producers said, ‘We’re still trying.’ So, best of luck to them, but nobody’s called me.”
To be fair, that was more than half a decade ago. The book feels more relevant than ever before in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I did not set out to predict anything when I wrote World War Z,” he said. “I was just drawing on history. My research of past plagues dictated how my fictional zombie virus would spread. Unfortunately, as a student of history, I’ve learned that it does tend to repeat, so here we are again.”
A sequel has been in development for quite some time, with David Fincher nearly directing at one point. Instead, he and Pitt reunited for Netflix’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood spinoff, The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth (in theaters Nov. 25).
This marks their fourth collaboration after Se7en (1995), Fight Club (1999) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). Well, technically five if you count their Heineken Super Bowl commercial from 2005.
