World War Z - Now script rewrites?

[Neil]

Oh dear! - http://www.aintitcool.com/node/56306


After hearing of some pretty extensive reshoots getting set to take place for the zombie flick being fronted by Brad Pitt, it looks like they have no idea really what they're even going to be filming. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Damon Lindelof has now been brought onto the production is being brought on to rewrite parts of the script, namely issues with the third act, for a movie that's been wrapped since last year.



http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Damon-Lindelof-Rewriting-World-War-Z-Screenplay-31328.html


Things haven't been looking good for Marc Forster's World War Z, his action-packed adaptation of Max Brooks' popular post-apocalyptic novel about a ten-year long Zombie War. First came the curious announcement that the film's release had been bumped from December of 2012 to June, 21 2013. While this could have been perceived as a sign of faith in its summer box office potential, it became downright troubling when news broke that the feature—which lensed last summer—was reuniting its cast for seven weeks of reshoots. While reshoots are pretty common for big budget productions, this is an alarmingly extensive shooting schedule that hints to major issues with the film.

[Danny]

Nothing good is gonna come from this. im expecting a dune tier level of shitty adaptation at this point.

[AcesandEights]

News keeps getting worse.

Get Sammich or Lou in here to spitball about this being a cover up operation headed by the Trilateral Commission. Sure, sure...they just want us to think they're filming a zombie movie, when it's all just a cover up for a real zombie apocalypse.

[Sammich]

The next step is that Alan Smithee will be listed as the director of WWZ.

It would have been magnitudes easier to have just written a script based on the original story instead of trying to turn it into a perverted "hipster" action movie for the 13-25 year old male audience most of which haven't even read the book, only now to frantically try to change it back. It isn't that difficult to just leave things alone like they did with the Harry Potter, Twilight and Hunger Games movies.

Just think, instead of all of the money and time wasted on the original script, shoots, reshoots and script rewrites, they could have made a 2 part faithful adaptation of WWZ. What a squandered away opportunity.

[Rancid Carcass]

only now to frantically try to change it back.

Maybe one of the 'suits' caught an episode of The Walking Dead and decided they could make more money by jumping on that bandwagon instead?

[Sammich]

Maybe one of the 'suits' caught an episode of The Walking Dead and decided they could make more money by jumping on that bandwagon instead?

I doubt it. MBA's are trained to place blame on scapegoats if they make a mistake. The only time they take responsibility for anything is when presenting as their own an idea they stole from someone else.

[LouCipherr]

News keeps getting worse.

Get Sammich or Lou in here to spitball about this being a cover up operation headed by the Trilateral Commission. Sure, sure...they just want us to think they're filming a zombie movie, when it's all just a cover up for a real zombie apocalypse.

:shifty:

What they're actually doing is filming ACTUAL zombie attacks in Florida and the surrounding areas. This footage will be inserted into WWZ and will precede the TRUE zombie apocalypse, which is going on right now but being covered up by the news media and the government.


Is that what you were waiting for, Aces? :D

Believe me, the Trilateral Commission has nothing to do with this - this cover-up requires.... for lack of a better term... BRAINS!

:lol:

[Thorn]

:shifty:

What they're actually doing is filming ACTUAL zombie attacks in Florida and the surrounding areas. This footage will be inserted into WWZ and will precede the TRUE zombie apocalypse, which is going on right now but being covered up by the news media and the government.


Is that what you were waiting for, Aces? :D

Believe me, the Trilateral Commission has nothing to do with this - this cover-up requires.... for lack of a better term... BRAINS!

:lol:

Funny stuff.

But really I think the willingness to try and fix it at the 11th hour is at least a sign that they screwed the pooch, maybe in screenings or whatever people just hated it... or maybe they brought in people who you know... read the book and they hated it. Will that equate to a better film? No certainly not it is likely to make it worse with two different visions and a sens of confusion where the film works against itself.

I still remain hopeful. Because that is me.

[Rancid Carcass]

Some more info on IGN. From the sounds of it, it will be a miracle if it's even watchable...

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/06/13/what-went-wrong-with-world-war-z

[bassman]

So they're fixing the ending? That's not too big of a situation, really. Endings change all the time.

At least they say the first hour or so is "great".

[Thorn]

So they're fixing the ending? That's not too big of a situation, really. Endings change all the time.

At least they say the first hour or so is "great".

That link is blocked from work... can anyone provide details to a down on his IT guy with strict filtering policies. Down on my luck, blew over and fell down a well...

[bassman]

That link is blocked from work... can anyone provide details to a down on his IT guy with strict filtering policies. Down on my luck, blew over and fell down a well...

As late as three weeks before World War Z's June 2011 production start, Forster had still not decided what the film's zombies would look like or how they would move. "They just couldn’t get it right," an unnamed source says. "There was a lot of spinning of plates, a lot of talking. [But] they did not have a plan." Positions like line producer and head of effects were filled and then dismissed and then re-filled.

Cinematographer Robert Richardson, an Oscar winner, reportedly asked to leave the production more than once. The DP also "struggled to impose order, antagonizing other crewmembers in the process."

And yet, it sounds like the film might still have a fighting chance. These same insiders claim that the first 45 minutes to an hour of the film are "great," and that it's mainly the ending that needs work. Paramount recently brought in Prometheus scripter Damon Lindelof to fix the third act of the film (though that's surely a puzzling move to many of the folks who left the theater scratching their heads after seeing Prometheus).

[Rancid Carcass]

That link is blocked from work... can anyone provide details to a down on his IT guy with strict filtering policies. Down on my luck, blew over and fell down a well...

Here ya go...

World War Z, Brad Pitt and director Marc Forster's adaptation of the Max Brooks zombie novel, is obviously in trouble at the moment. The Paramount film recently was revealed to be heading back for as much as seven weeks of reshoots (now said to be more like five) almost a year after the original production wrapped, and the picture's release date was pushed to June 2013 from a planned December release. So what went wrong?

The Hollywood Reporter has spoken to a bunch of insiders about the troubled production, with one of them claiming the project has been "a nightmare from top to bottom." Of course, this could all be spin from warring factions within the World War Z camp, but it's still fascinating, inside-baseball kind of stuff.

The issues reportedly began with Forster who, with little experience in visual-effects tentpole pictures, was hobbled as a leader. Industry vets were hired to head production departments, though they were not members of Forster's usual team, and the result was a "seemingly headless enterprise driven by conflicts."

As late as three weeks before World War Z's June 2011 production start, Forster had still not decided what the film's zombies would look like or how they would move. "They just couldn’t get it right," an unnamed source says. "There was a lot of spinning of plates, a lot of talking. [But] they did not have a plan." Positions like line producer and head of effects were filled and then dismissed and then re-filled.

Cinematographer Robert Richardson, an Oscar winner, reportedly asked to leave the production more than once. The DP also "struggled to impose order, antagonizing other crewmembers in the process."

And yet, it sounds like the film might still have a fighting chance. These same insiders claim that the first 45 minutes to an hour of the film are "great," and that it's mainly the ending that needs work. Paramount recently brought in Prometheus scripter Damon Lindelof to fix the third act of the film (though that's surely a puzzling move to many of the folks who left the theater scratching their heads after seeing Prometheus).

World War Z is a good book with some great potential as a film. Let's hope they work this out and the picture doesn't turn out to be a ghoulish mess when it finally hits next year. Well, not that kind of ghoulish mess…

[Sammich]

It is very evident that NONE of the people involved in making this movie even read the book. 7 weeks of reshoots just to fix the ending? I don't buy it. That is the same amount of time it would take to shoot an entire movie. I wouldn't trust the word of the "insiders" either.

Cinematographer Robert Richardson, an Oscar winner, reportedly asked to leave the production more than once. The DP also "struggled to impose order, antagonizing other crewmembers in the process."

This gives me all the more reason to believe that Alan Smithee is going to get the director's tag for this movie when it is released.

[rgc2005]

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=736237

At least Paramount has not insisted on a 3D upconvert yet.............................

[MinionZombie]

'The first 45 minutes are great' ... and yet they're only fixing "the end" of the flick? Unless the movie is 60 minutes long, they're going to have a shit-ton of shittiness between this supposed "great" 45 minutes and the new ending ... or maybe they're actually re-shooting half (or more) of the whole damn movie?

Sounds like this was a real balls up in the production. From the disregard to the source material (the biggest mistake), to piss poor leadership, and a bad vibe in pre-production and production, this sounds like a disaster in the making. It's unsurprising, yet still amazing, how with such terrific source material, Hollywood can manage to make this much of a clusterfuck of the whole thing. It sounds ruddy awful - and from what we've seen, the zombies themselves take the mick.

[SymphonicX]

This gives me all the more reason to believe that Alan Smithee is going to get the director's tag for this movie when it is released.

lol!

He even has his own IMDB bio - Hellraiser Bloodline and "Another Night of the Living Dead" pop up.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000647/

adorning your movie with "Alan Smithee" is like a weapon in itself nowdays lol