The Zombie Nation Webcomic

The rumor going around is that Brad Pitt’s zombie movie based on the novel “World War Z” (Written by Max Brook) will be turned into a trilogy.  “World War Z” is scheduled to come out December 2012.

Brad Pitt’s costar on the set, James Badge, let the rumor drop.

“That book [the flick is based on the best-selling tome of the same name] is such a thick dense book of so many socio- and political and economic views that says a lot about us as people,”

“So I think we’d like to make 18 more World War Z’s and we’d still have more material because it’s an ongoing story.”

While I’m all for having a epic zombie trilogy to rival “The Lord of The Rings” some of the choices being made are upsetting the diehard fans of the novel. For one thing the novel is very episodic in nature and told in a series of flashbacks. The movie plot seams to be changed to follow Brad Pitt’s character as he tries to fight the growing zombie threat.  That’s a pretty big change.

Look I’ll be honest here, That is a GOOD change. I loved the novel, it was great, but any story told as flashbacks immediately loses a tremendous amount of tension. You already know how it’s going to end up for the most part. That’s not to say that can’t still be done well, I read a lot of H.P. Lovecraft and most of his stories are told that way, with the main character telling you what has already happened. The novel is great, but it’s hard to make a movie like that.

Here you can see some actual filming for the movie, which brings me to the next thing die hard fans are complaining about.

Fast Zombies

Max Brooks, the author of the novel, is on record as not being a fan of them and you can clearly see the zombies being pretty dang lively in the above clip.  Again I’m going to break with the purists here and say I love fast zombies. I like slow zombies too, but they don’t make me wet my pants and curl up in the fetal position. Fast zombies may not have the slow macabre dread of the original George Romero pop culture zombie, but let’s be honest, they are scarier to face overall.

Who knows how much control Brooks has over what goes on in the filming of his novel. I’m guessing not a lot.  I have no idea whether “World War Z” will do well at the box office or not, but I’m keeping hope alive. Really good zombie movies are few and far between.