World War Z premiere to coincide with end of the world

[DarthTom]

Dream wrote:

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That's the problem with this movie. This movie looks like it will have nothing to do with the book. Why bother calling it World War Z if they doing follow the book at all except for the token gesture of giving one of the character the same?

Copy right laws. It's close enough to the book that Paramount would get their asses sued if they didn't acknowledge the writer by naming the film after his book and paying him a shit load of money for the rights.

Trust me if they could have retitled the film, "Zombie Wars" - not paid the writer of the book a nickel and still gotten Brad Pitt to star in the film they would have in a heartbeat.

[sojourner]

^Your argument would have merit if they hadn't bought the rights to the book before ever having an idea for the movie. nevermind a script. And I would argue that the movie we are getting is far enough from the book that even copyright laws wouldn't be an issue.

[Locutus of Bored]

DarthTom wrote:

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Trust me if they could have retitled the film, "Zombie Wars" - not paid the writer of the book a nickel and still gotten Brad Pitt to star in the film they would have in a heartbeat.

That's completely backwards. They could have just made any old zombie movie they wanted and not have worried about copyright. But they wanted to use the popularity and name recognition of the World War Z novel to attract fans and people who hadn't read it but had heard of it to the film. Giving it some generic name would largely defeat the purpose. Furthermore, originally Pitt's whole reason for signing on was that he was a huge fan of the book, IIRC. Both of which are why it's so incredibly frustrating that they essentially threw out the narrative, zombie mechanics, and the overall point of the novel and went with something completely different.

[DarthTom]

sojourner wrote:

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^Your argument would have merit if they hadn't bought the rights to the book before ever having an idea for the movie. nevermind a script. And I would argue that the movie we are getting is far enough from the book that even copyright laws wouldn't be an issue.

I'm sure Paramount saw the book and thought it may be a good story and bought the rights. The problem obviously has become is how to make the film into a blockbuster and adhere somewhat to the book and the original storyline.

Temis made a good point earlier as well that it may have been an interesting story for some of us to film the zombie plague as written, I'm doubting that approach would have had mass appeal. The general public expects big visuals and it to be fast paced.

I'll give you a great example of a big budget film that flopped but still IMO was a great story. I saw Cloud Atlas last weekend. Great story, top rate actors, good story [albeit a little long at almost 3 hours] but very, very slow. And it cost a fortune to film at nearly $100 million. It's being dubbed the $100 million flop.

World War Z is a great story as written but not IMO a great story to put into a ~ 2 hour film with big stars who command large salaries which makes the film very expensive to make and therefore demands a large audience to pay for itself.

[sojourner]

^You've got your chicken before the egg there.

[Locutus of Bored]

DarthTom wrote:

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I'm sure Paramount saw the book and thought it may be a good story and bought the rights. The problem obviously has become is how to make the film into a blockbuster and adhere somewhat to the book and the original storyline.

Temis made a good point earlier as well that it may have been an interesting story for some of us to film the zombie plague as written, I'm doubting that approach would have had mass appeal. The general public expects big visuals and it to be fast paced.

World War Z is a great story as written but not IMO a great story to put into a ~ 2 hour film with big stars who command large salaries which makes the film very expensive to make and therefore demands a large audience to pay for itself.

I never bought into the argument that the book couldn't be cinematic yet largely faithful to the format with a few key changes. All the big visuals and action are there, just in separate anecdotes from the people being interviewed. And instead of putting the focus on one big star, they could have had a huge international ensemble cast of talented actors and actresses to fill the various roles in the book.

I always thought a good template for a cinematic adaptation of WWZ would be the Edward Zwick movie Courage Under Fire with Denzel Washington. I understand that Hollywood would want its leading character involved in the action somewhat, so like that film, you can give it a framing story where the interviewer recalls his own experiences from the war. You could have him be embedded with one of the units who fought in the Battle of Yonkers for instance, which gives the film a chance to start off with a massive battle that hooks the viewer in.

After that, the reporter is sent on assignment to interview various survivors about their perspectives on the war, similar to how Washington interviewed the survivors of the primary incident in Courage Under Fire to find out the truth about what happened, but in this case it would be numerous unrelated people with unrelated stories. In the end, everything he learns from the others could give him a new perspective on his own experiences and thus tie the sorylines together.

[sojourner]

^To take that further, I think it would have been neat to have different directors for the segments. It would have further developed the different point of views of the people telling the stories.

[Temis the Vorta]

Being faithful to the book certainly would be a risk, since the anthology format is so unfamiliar to audiences but I would have liked to see a little more creativity vs total capitulation to the standard Hollywood formula. I think they could have come up with a better compromise at least...

[sojourner]

Yes, the anthology concept is definitely beyond the grasp of the average human being.

[Ian Keldon]

^In the context of a big-screen movie it is.

[sojourner]

It's actually a bit of a tradition with horror movies.

[Ian Keldon]

I can only think of two within the last 10-15 years: Creepshow and Twilight Zone and those were over a decade ago each, the only other one that springs to mind is "Trilogy of Terror" and that was what? Late 70s?...hardly a tradition.

[sojourner]

Couldn't be bothered to type it, so look here.

[Ian Keldon]

I did not know there were so many...most of those I've never heard of but a few jog memories I'd forgotten about.

[the G-man]

Dream wrote:

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Yeah, this looks like another Big Dumb Action Movie™.

I'll take The Walking Dead over this anyday.

It really looked like a remake of Spielberg's "War of the Worlds." Pass.