AVC: How’s the movie coming along? There was a big bidding war when the book came out in 2006, but we haven’t heard much about it lately.

MB: It’s never stalled. It’s just in development. Which is maddening, because development takes forever. They’ve always been full steam ahead on it; I think the problem is that if they’re going to make it, it’s going to have to be a really big movie, and I think that has made them very conscious of trying to get it right. They got a writer who did a kick-ass job. They brought in another writer who I hear is doing another kick-ass job. They brought in [director] Marc Forster, thank God. I was terrified they’d bring in some guy who had done some MTV videos, and they thought would be perfect for it. But the fact that they brought in Forster (Monster’s Ball, Quantum Of Solace) I thought was amazing—we had lunch and talked about it, and he gets it. He gets what I was trying to do with the book.

AVC: Do you have any day-to-day involvement with the production?

MB: Nope. You know more about it than I do.

AVC: Was it hard to let go of it when you sold the rights, and leave it to hope that the studio would do right by the book?

MB: No. My attitude was, I wrote the best zombie book I could write. Now it’s up to them to make the best zombie movie they can make. As far as sticking close to my book, I don’t think that’s so important. It’s more important to me that they just make a good zombie movie. I would only be nervous if somehow they had the right to rewrite my book. I mean, my book is done. People can see what I can do. And that’s fine with me. I’ve had my artistic moment. Now it’s up to them.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/max-brooks,42941/

Which is maddening, because development takes forever. They’ve always been full steam ahead on it

Brad Pitt’s World War Z Could Be (Un)Dead If Paramount Can’t Find a Partner

World War Z, Brad Pitt’s movie about a global undead apocalypse, may be dying (or is it re-dying?) unless Paramount can find a co-financier. The film currently has a price tag of more than $125 million, and the studio is fervently searching for a partner to share the risk. Our sources tell us that if they can't find one, it's likely that Paramount will pull the plug on the adaptation of the Max Brooks book, which was to be directed by Quantum of Solace's Marc Forster and star Pitt, who would also produce.

Insiders say an eleventh-hour effort is being made to court frequent Paramount co-financier David Ellison (Mission: Impossible IV, Top Gun II) as well as another, unspecified investor. Paramount Film Group president Adam Goodman insists to Vulture, "We're really committed to making a big, kick-ass giant movie with Marc Forster and Brad Pitt." Pressed on whether the studio would move forward without a financial partner, Goodman declined to elaborate, saying it was too early to tell. Absent such a financial partner, it's highly unlikely that Paramount would go forward; in today's economic climate, few studios are shouldering such budgets alone. Just two weeks ago, Universal shut down Guillermo del Toro's similarly costly and graphic adaptation of the H.P Lovecraft novel At the Mountains of Madness. But, to be fair, Del Toro was intent on an R rating, while Goodman says that Paramount signed a deal with Forster assuring them of a PG-13 cut.

'World War Z' With Brad Pitt And Marc Forster Regroups; Can It Beat Imminent Zombie Pic Infestation?
By MIKE FLEMING | Tuesday March 29, 2011 @ 2:53pm EDT

While there have been reports that Paramount might kill World War Z because of a $125 million budget and no partners, I'm hearing that hot and heavy talks are going on with David Ellison's Skydance and as many as two other financiers to share the load on a movie that is gearing up for production as soon as June. The plan remains for Brad Pitt to star and for Marc Forster to direct the adaptation Max Brooks' novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. The book looked at the aftermath of a global zombie war 10 years after the conflict, with a researcher for the UN Postwar Commission interviewing survivors in countries that were decimated by flesh eaters. It was thorough, and a thoroughly creepy read. Matt Carnahan wrote the script.

The temptation is to joke about the irony of a zombie project coming back to life after it was pronounced near dead. As a devotee of great zombie movies from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead to Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, Zack Snyder's spirited Dawn of the Dead remake and genre spoofs Zombieland and Shaun Of The Dead, I am excited enough by WWZ that I hope it stays on its fast track. Because if it waits around much longer, Hollywood might by that time have killed off the genre with an over-saturation of flesh-eating corpse movies that could be as fatal to the film zombie as a shotgun blast to the head.

A look at the roster of zombie projects that are either going into production or percolating in development is more than daunting. I've always found zombies a far more interesting movie species than vampires or werewolves, but the genre benefited when Hollywood paced itself. After all, there was only so much plot innovation possible with slow moving hordes of hungry corpses. who were not handsome and sporting six-packs like the Twilight Saga kids, with little romantic sparks possible when the key characters were in the process of decomposing when they came back to life. Still, a quick scan of recent zombie deals shows that there are probably more than 20 films with a realistic chance of getting made over the next few years, with story lines that twist the genre in directions that are new for zombies.

The films range from Summit's move to set Nicholas Hoult as a hunky zombie heartthrob in Warm Bodies to Lionsgate's period adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith Jane Austen novel send-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, to Universal's Robert Schwentke-directed R.I.P.D. (Ryan Reynolds and possibly Zach Galifianakis in an action comedy about a force of undead police officers). There are new installments of 28 Days Later, Zombieland and Resident Evil in the works. Jonah Hill is attached to direct The Kitchen Sink, where a zombie, vampire and human teen teams to fight invading aliens (sure it sounds like a bar joke, but Oren Uziel's script made The Black List). There is Paul is Undead (a satire that re-imagines Beatles lore with the Fab Four as zombies); Sony Pictures' just made a deal to turn the comic Zombies Vs Robots into a film with Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes cohorts; and WWZ studio Paramount is playing the genre for laughs with Boy Scouts Vs. Zombies, where scouts battle the flesh eaters. TV is also getting into act, after AMC's awesomely good first season of The Walking Dead. The CW, thriving with the bloodsucker drama Vampire Diaries, has a zombie series called Awakening, and there will surely be others. I'm sure other zombie fanatics will agree this is only scratching the surface of the total volume of projects in the works.

Despite my concern about zombie film overpopulation, is there any zombie fanatic not excited over a movie version of World War Z, if the financing lines up to share costs with Paramount, and Pitt and Forster follow through and team in the film?

Matthew Fox and Ed Harris likely joining World War Z
by Sean O'Neal June 14, 2011

After being rescued by Megan Ellison’s more broadminded brother David—who, in turn, rescued America from a future with one less zombie apocalypse movie—World War Z continues to shape up pretty nicely, which is good because it’s the one film in that genre with arguably the most riding on it. The adaptation of Max Brooks’ novel already had Brad Pitt attached to star, and now Pitt’s supporting cast will likely include both Matthew Fox and Ed Harris, who will bring to the project their particular breed of manly gravitas (one sort of petulant, the other slightly gruff). Rounding out the ensemble are two AMC drama veterans: Rubicon’s James Badge Dale, who will no doubt have lots of backhanded compliments to offer The Killing’s Mireille Enos on her similarly slow-burning show getting a second season.

Matthew Fox and Ed Harris won't be in World War Z after all
by Sean O'Neal June 30, 2011

Vulture reports that Matthew Fox and Ed Harris have taken their respective auras of masculine confidence away from World War Z, the Brad Pitt-starring adaptation of Max Brooks’ book about one of just several potential zombie apocalypses. While early reports seemed to suggest they were locks for their unspecified roles, Fox has now bowed out due to his commitment to I, Alex Cross, the forthcoming thriller in which Tyler Perry will Tyler Perry's show everyone, damn it. Ed Harris’ reasons for backing away from the deal are less clear as of now, though they definitely do not involve Tyler Perry. (Unless there’s a House Of Payne marathon.)

He plays Max Brooks - the real-life author of the fictional book - who scours the world collecting the stories and experiences of those who have survived ten years after the human victory over the world wide Zombie epidemic, referred to as World War Z.

These scenes were set in Israel, which in the book is the only country in the world to close its borders and initiate a national quarantine against the zombie outbreak.