Posted on 05/01/2013 9:20:03 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Damon Lindelof and Paramount have spilled the rotten tomatoes on Brad Pitt's "World War Z."
Incomplete script, an incoherent ending, massive re-shoots, millions of dollars in budget overages, and even a Hungarian SWAT team raid are apparently just a few of the issues plaguing Pitt's troubled production, according to Vanity Fair's June cover story.
According to "Lost" writer Lindelof, who rewrote the film's third act and spoke with VF contributor Laura M. Holson, the SWAT team was the least of the producing team's worries. After screening a first cut of Marc Forster's geopolitical zombie thriller, Lindelof said the ending was abrupt and incoherent.
(Excerpt) Read more at movies.yahoo.com ...
Sounds like a good plot for a novel.
I seem to remember reading some novel where a particular strain of ebola was made that affected those of middle eastern descent.
The interview had been going well. Finally my interviewer got to the part that signaled he had no more questions. The signal doesn’t vary much from company to company. “Well,” he said, “that’s all the questions I have for you. Do you have any for me?”
I have a pretty good set of questions I usually ask to let him know I was paying attention and really care about the job. Usually I already know the answer but asking the question is important. In this case I really did have a question about something that had piqued my curiosity.
“That office over there,” I nodded my head to my left, his right, “I haven’t seen anyone go in or out since I’ve been here. What’s it used for?”
“Oh, people don’t go in there. That’s where we keep the zombie coders.”
“Zombie coders?” My poker face was nowhere to be found. “You have zombies in there?”
“Oh, yeah.” He said. “They’re great. Their code is as good as we ever got from people. They don’t mind working long, hard hours, and we don’t have to pay them a thing.”
“But, I thought zombies were dangerous.” I was making sure I knew where the exits were.
“Oh, not if you feed them well,” he assured me. “They really don’t have any interest in coming out of that room. The only reason they would is if they got hungry. We haven’t ever had a problem with that. They don’t even get noisy any more, although in the early days the sounds coming through the door would tell us they were hungry.”
“But, how can you feed them if...”
“Shh,” he interrupted me, “you’re just in time. Just watch.”
At that point a man came into the room and said, “Did someone order pizza?” My host pointed to the door and the pizza man said, “Thanks.” Then he opened the door. Immediately he was snatched and I heard the first part of a scream before the door shut behind him and muffled the sound of rending flesh. Nobody else in the room even looked up.
“Delivery guys are our salvation. There are way too many of them in this city anyway. Nobody cares when one goes missing. And there are plenty of food places around here so we can order delivery for over 3 months before we have to repeat. It’s a really sweet setup.”
I’m not sure what he was reading in my face at this point, but I noticed more movement by that door. A man in a suit and tie knocked on the door and said, “OK, guys, status time.” Then he opened the door and went in. I cringed waiting for the sounds I had heard from the pizza guy, but was surprised when nothing happened. A few minutes later the door opened and the man in the suit came out. “Thanks, guys. See you tomorrow,” he said.
“How did he do that?” I asked, my eyes surely as round as saucers at this point.
“Oh, that was the project manager. He was never in any danger. The zombies only eat brains.”
In the novel they actually do come up with anti-bite suits. It's a really good treatment, much more sophisticated than Brooks' previous campy Zombie Survival Guide. Hollywood will butcher it, naturally.
The difficulty is that the book is about a UN author looking back on the 10-year zombie war and getting oral testimony from sundry combatants. The war isn't over at that point. Iceland is still lost and children have to be taught "not to play near lakes" because now and then a zombie will emerge. You could end the film that way if you wanted a great horror flick, but not if you're after a "Brad Pitt saves the world" shootemup adventure flick, which is apparently what they're trying to do. The book was simply much, much better than that.
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Battle of Yonkers was just an overwhelming tide, the army hasn’t figured out the kill shot to the head. There were sword wielding soldiers in the book, can’t picture how they’d succeed against swarm. Walking Dead has it right. May skip World Z. Such a great book, so many compelling vignettes, and looks like Hollywood blew it.
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