World War Z, the most amazing zombie book ever written to date, is being turned into a movie that will be released in 2010. We all know that…but the latest news around the adaptation has been scarce. However, finally, I have some of the latest updates around the World War Z movie.

In mid-November, Marc Forster signed on to direct this large scale zombie movie adaptation. Forester is the director of the latest Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. According to IMDB, his other works include indie favorites Monsters Ball, Kite Runner, Stranger Than Fiction and Finding Neverland.

I have no doubt that Forester can tell a good story. After all, his indie efforts are proof of that. However, his latest debut as an action movie director has me a little concerned. Bond, although good, was a little disjointed at parts and the action sequences were just a little rough around the edges. My hope is that he can learn from his successes and failures from his entire portfolio to pull off one of the greatest, large scale zombie movies of all time. Time will tell.

Other World War Z movie news includes information about the script. Michael Straczynski, is revisiting his first draft of the movie adaptation to include some of the notes from from Marc Forster. According to Rotten Tomatoes, Strazynski had this to say about the script:

“Most zombie movies to this point have been small, focusing on a few people in a house. And this has got real scare. You’re in India with hundreds of boats trying to get out of there with a tidal wave of zombies. The scale of what we’re doing here is phenomenal.”

The writers at Aintitcoolnews.com, who have seen the most recent draft of the “pre-director changes” script, have gone as far as to say that the movie is:

“a horror epic, a serious, sober-minded adult picture”, potentially “a genre-defining piece of work” with Best Picture potential

The fact that its being produced by Brad Pitt’s production company is awesome as well. There are rumors that Pitt himself will play the main interviewer/researcher, Gary Lane. Pitt would do a great job in this role, and I’m increasingly excited to see this all coming together.

If this movie is truly genre-defining, and has the mass-appeal that I believe they are going for, then this could mean a whole slew of new zombie movies will get funded and created. I don’t think anybody would argue that we’re in kind of a slump right now. After the success of 28 Days Later, we had a bunch of great and well funded zombie movies come out…but that just isn’t the case these days. In fact, it seemed to me that Quarantine, the most recent Zombie movie to hit the big screen, tried to stay away from the fact that it was a zombie film in the previews and marketing….

I’m keeping my fingers crossed!