World War Z (film)

[MinionZombie]

Just specifically on the issue of the budget - and from a sort of technical viewpoint - I've been hearing $200m bandied about (but unsure if that includes advertising or not - the filmmakers seem very reluctant to put the actual budget on front-street, and no commentators seem to have a solid guestimate). Good lord! That recent talk (was it Spielberg & Lucas saying it?) about epic budgets, and then the idea of a 'budget bubble' (I can't recall who was talking about that in the media recently), seems important - there's so much money going into a handful of films ... truly vast budgets ... but of course, generally, more money doesn't necessarily equal quality (just as a tiny budget doesn't necessarily equal invention, undiscovered talent, or a Blair Witch style hit). Something you do have to consider, as well as the advertising budget going on top of the production budget, is that if a film makes $100m at the box office, not all of that goes back to the studio who made the movie - I don't know what the percentage split is, but a bunch of that is going to the theatres (even if some of them are chain cinemas, and are possibly down the line from that same studio via some corporate family tree) - so the studio has to earn even more than the posted figures to at first break even, and then move into profit. It's an interesting situation at the moment in Hollywood with these big budgets - you look at David Fincher's version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - it was a fairly pricey R-Rated flick ($90m apparently) with a box office of apparently $232m ... and yet, according to Sony, they only made a "small profit" on it and would therefore not be moving ahead with a sequel. The figures seem barmy. Although that's what they said a while ago ... now apparently they are going to do the sequels, possibly even back-to-back (might this be in response to home video/VOD/etc box office, as well as some professional accounting?) This numbers game is a funny old business. It'd be interesting to see a budget breakdown of these massive budgets on these massive films just to see how much money goes where ... although they'd never do that for business and competition reasons. It'll be interesting to see how this all pans out - I'm certainly a tad surprised by it's current BO take, but on the other hand is it so surprising? Pearl Harbour caught a lot of flack in the press for having a budget of $140m, and didn't do well with the critics, and yet it raked in just shy of $450m ... Waterworld was a flop, but the theme park attraction has been a smash hit, and the film itself did move into profit a while back. There's probably a sense of curiosity (kind of like horror fans going to see god-awful horror remakes like The Fog 2005, or A Nightmare On Elm Street 2010), but also the Brad Pitt factor bringing in the wider female audience ... and of course the PG-13 rating meaning a wider potential market. Naturally, it would be financial madness to splash up to $200m on an R-Rated release. Although it'd be cool if, one day, they could figure out a way of being able to put out two versions of a movie like this - one that's R-Rated for the hardcore fans, and one that's softer for the wider audience and the cash in their pockets.

[Neil]

It would have made too much noise & also spoil the phone gag. The truck was already going... It was a done deal.. Why not put 4 people in it rather than 1? I think you hit the nail on the head with the phone gag

[Morto Vivente]

CO-sign.. its Zombies have gotten so much more popular and guess what BETTER over the years .. LIke it or Not.. Walking Dead is the best Zombie adaptation ever.. i love the original dfawn of the dead .. but the dawn of the dead remake is on par with day and Night I agree TWD is one of the better pieces of zombie film out there (I wouldn't necessarily say it's the best). Could this be because the people at AMC respect what a zombie is and don't rely on revisionist shite, because they already have the most important factor that any decent zombie flick needs...CHARACTERS WE CARE ABOUT. "THEY'RE FUC*KING DEAD", but damn they did learn some tricks! Why would anyone pay money to watch a flick about vampires that were suddenly immune to sunlight because some half-arsed writer/director says so? I know I wouldn't. Why? Because they would no longer be vampires. At least have the respect to call them something else in order to cash in. Hollywood..... The most successful pimp in history.

[MoonSylver]

Why would anyone pay money to watch a flick about vampires that were suddenly immune to sunlight because some half-arsed writer says so? Because they're FABULOUS?!?!?

[krisvds]

But, but, but,... Stoker's Dracula walks around in broad daylight?! All the wooden stake, crucifix, sunlight, ... trappings were Hollywood/German (nosferatu) additions, right? If I remember correctly Lucy had to be killed by beheading her, putting garlic in her mouth AND staking the poor girl.

[Publius]

But, but, but,... Stoker's Dracula walks around in broad daylight?! All the wooden stake, crucifix, sunlight, ... trappings were Hollywood/German (nosferatu) additions, right? If I remember correctly Lucy had to be killed by beheading her, putting garlic in her mouth AND staking the poor girl. I believe all of these things were part of vampire folklore before Stoker's Dracula and before Nosferatu and subsequent vampire movies, but the movies just made them more standardized and formulaic. For example, folklore vampires often only were active at night; that was just their nature. The movies expanded that into the idea that sunlight would actually kill them. Garlic (along with salt and other herbs) and sacred items (crucifix, holy water) were widely viewed in folklore as effective for warding off evil entities of various types, not just vampires. As for Lucy, yes, they did all those things to her, but the book suggests that staking OR beheading should be effective, and Van Helsing did both (plus stuff the mouth with garlic) as a precaution.

[wayzim]

I believe all of these things were part of vampire folklore before Stoker's Dracula and before Nosferatu and subsequent vampire movies, but the movies just made them more standardized and formulaic. For example, folklore vampires often only were active at night; that was just their nature. The movies expanded that into the idea that sunlight would actually kill them. Garlic (along with salt and other herbs) and sacred items (crucifix, holy water) were widely viewed in folklore as effective for warding off evil entities of various types, not just vampires. As for Lucy, yes, they did all those things to her, but the book suggests that staking OR beheading should be effective, and Van Helsing did both (plus stuff the mouth with garlic) as a precaution. The folklore is variable, in accordance to whose mythology you follow. Stoker made up as much of the legend as he researched. But if you like all things Dracula ( as I have for many decades now ) try to find a copy of The Annotated Dracula (Ballantine Books, first printing 1975 )which has major footnotes on virtually every other page. It's been an invaluable tool, a fun read, and trying out the Paprika Hendel recipe was both tasty AND messy. Wayne Z It was a being like no other he’d met in his reign as predator supreme, long and lanky, with a form vaguely like those chattering apes, just recently descended from the trees. But any further familiarity ended there. The elongated body was hairless, smooth ash grey flesh almost invisible in the dark. The head of the crouching creature had none of the ape features common to its’ lesser kin, rather a flat expression with enflamed nostrils devoid of nose, the thin lips curled back ever so slightly to display long deceptively narrow canines. The smallish round eyes, set to the front of its’ oval shaped head, examined the saber-tooth with a detached curiosity. And when it reared upright upon lean powerful legs, the seven foot tall hunter did so without the awkwardness of lesser primates when attempting the same trick. These observations took but a few seconds, before the ambush came ... Preservation of a species: the novel, by Wayne Zimmerman

[Morto Vivente]

But, but, but,... Stoker's Dracula walks around in broad daylight?! All the wooden stake, crucifix, sunlight, ... trappings were Hollywood/German (nosferatu) additions, right? If I remember correctly Lucy had to be killed by beheading her, putting garlic in her mouth AND staking the poor girl. That's my point, the majority of vampire mythology rates sunlight as either fatal or extremely debilitating, "not cured with a top hat and a pair of shades". Personally I don't rate Stroker's Dracula that highly on the movie or literary scale. All mythology undergoes change, but IMO there comes a point when revisionism in order to create novelty becomes hilarious. When GAR fused the African concept of a zombie with the Arabian ghoul it worked because he didn't ignore, and subsequently walk all over the pedigree of either concept. In fact the concepts were used in the creation of the movies. For instance the opening scene of Day and the basement in Dawn; ghoul in Arabic can mean " TO SEIZE". Vampires who are immune to sunlight, and zombies (whether they're the traditional African/Haitian type, or the GAR variety) when imbued with the physical constitutions of athletes on PCP will never allow for great movies of either genre. IMO it's a matter of degree. For me the suspension of disbelief required for runners is a step too far. Despite this I don't see the need to be militant about it, I've watched Dawn 04. I'll give WWZ a chance and watch it whenever, but I won't pay money or make much effort to see it, at a friend's house on DVD.... Sure. 28 days later is a fantastic movie IMO, but I think the difference between it and the other two flicks is plausible revisionism.

[krisvds]

To summarise: A zombie film deals with the dead returning to life and feeding on the living. A reanimated corpse does not run, it shambles. In that I believe most people posting here agree. A person infected by a virus/possessed by an evil (Kandarian, even) demon or spirit that turns him/her into a mindless ghoul attacking and often feeding on the living is another thing altogether. Both approaches have turned out some classics/shitty flicks.

[Morto Vivente]

I agree with the diffrences you've hi-lighted, and again this goes back to my original point. Alex Garland has stated categorically that alot of 28 Days Later was inspired by Day of the Dead. But I think in order to allow for something new he changed the nomenclature of the threat from zombies to "The Infected", thus enabling him to revise the concept, and not just ignore the essence of what a zombie is. Now zombies can run! But they're dead and therefore shamble? Who cares! IMO Alex Garland displayed talent and respect and not the arrogance of Zack Snyder.

[Neil]

To summarise: A zombie film deals with the dead returning to life and feeding on the living. A reanimated corpse does not run, it shambles. In that I believe most people posting here agree. A person infected by a virus/possessed by an evil (Kandarian, even) demon or spirit that turns him/her into a mindless ghoul attacking and often feeding on the living is another thing altogether. Both approaches have turned out some classics/shitty flicks. We've have done this over and over... Personally, I don't have a problem with running zombies. It changes the threat of them to something very immediate, which I don't like as much, but it doesn't break a film for me. The moment they get superhuman though, gain instant contacts, buck teeth and dino lungs, that bugs me to hell!

[kidgloves]

Just got back from seeing this in 2D this afternoon. I liked it a lot. Didn't love it but liked it. It got better for me as it went along as well because it started quite disappointingly I thought. A very very uneven and schizophrenic movie that doesn't really know what it is. I would say its more thriller than horror. Loads and I mean LOADS of people jumped at the scares when they happened which surprised a jaded veteran like myself. Didn't really miss the gore (never do tbh) but some scenes did stand out by their choice to do it off screen. There are echo's of the book which i really enjoyed and people who have read WWZ multiple times and listened to the audiobook, like myself, must have grinned to themselves on numerous occasions. I did find the constant use of, and as a small plot point, the words "zombie" and "undead" as quite jarring because these are infected. You should do yourself a big favour by accepting that before you go in otherwise you are wasting your time and money if you are expecting anything like the classic (and book) version. The Jerusalem sequence was fucking EPIC. Epic I tells ya. Ending left it open for many parts of the book to still to be executed on screen.

[Neil]

The Jerusalem sequence was one of the few bits that sort of felt something like the book didn't you think? The lack of blood annoyed me a bit. eg: bloodless stumps! Glad you 'liked' it

[kidgloves]

The Jerusalem sequence was one of the few bits that sort of felt something like the book didn't you think? Yeah. Even though it was a reverse of the situation in the book. The ref to Patient Zero and Doctor, the Jewish Intelligence service, nuke ref, North Koreans disappearing etc. Was a bit annoyed by the whole family bit at the beginning and jetting around the world but they wouldn't have had a semi coherent story without it I guess. God knows where all the budget went as well cause it certainly wasn't on screen. The ending montage had me very hopeful for a sequel though especially the stadium scene.

[wayzim]

Didn't want to quote Kidgloves, only because after seeing WWZ today (also in 2D ) I happen to agree with most of Kids initial conclusions. Additionally I liked that they attempted to show some strategic problem solving ( although much of that was troublesome because we never got a good sense of any real coordinating efforts between the different groups globally ) As to the nature of the enemy, they did actually clinically define them as Dead ( as in no respiration, heart rythm and blood circulation - at all ) when discussing bio/chemical counters ) so anyone arguing otherwise might end up sounding silly. The downside to the Jerusalem incident, which was a gripping bit of film making ( mostly - as I do have a quibble or two about that, but visually it was very cool. ) is that the catalyst for the massed attack seemed in opposition to the premptive nature of their defense. The Israelis shouldn't have allowed that to happen. But by and large it was a decent movie, though not at all the great zombie epic some are claiming. In one post, someone mentioned original concepts - and I think I know which ones they're talking about. Honestly, these are old ideas that have been paraded around in zombie literature for decades ( which I should know, because one or two popped up in my Deadfall stories from way back when. ) though perhaps not that often in film. Still, I spotted one right away in the Jerusalem holocaust because I'd read a similar trope in the Book of The Dead anthology back in 89 - from a story called 'Like Pavlov's Dogs. ' (by Stephen R. Boyett ) and I liked it so much I repeated the gag in Deadfall. So really, there's nothing new under the sun. Still, I enjoyed WWZ well enough, so that if they can refine it better in a sequel - go for it and good luck. This is my first impression right now, so likely I'll find other points later on which bug me. Wayne Z