Scrapped World War Z 2 plans reveal that the canceled sequel could’ve remedied major complaints that emerged from the first movie. Marc Forster’s 2013 film caught slack for being unfaithful to its source novel, Max Brooks’s World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. The book reads as a post-apocalyptic collection of individual accounts told to and recorded by a United Nations Postwar Committee agent following a zombie plague. The movie version introduced a single protagonist, Brad Pitt’s Gerry Lane, as a former United Nations investigator seeking a solution for the sudden zombie apocalypse, but other than that sentiment, World War Z deviated immensely from the novel.
Deviation from the book garnered plenty of complaints from fans, but many still looked forward to the development of a possible World War Z sequel. Unfortunately, from the beginning, World War Z 2 struggled in pre-production with rewrites, scheduling conflicts with Pitt, and finding a solid directorial candidate, until eventually, David Fincher came aboard with big ideas for the direction of the sequel. In hindsight, Fincher’s sequel conception would’ve had great potential in fixing the film franchise’s harsh digression from the source novel had it not been scrapped, but ultimately the World War Z universe would’ve continued to struggle to get fans of the literature on board with the movies.
World War Z 2 Would’ve Been More Character-Driven
In an interview with GQ, David Fincher unveiled that his canceled World War Z sequel would have looked “a little like The Last of Us,” the viral post-apocalyptic zombie TV series that was released in early 2023 on HBO. The Last of Us became popular for its emotional rendition of the video game, which is played from a third-person perspective. Like the game, The Last of Us series is an emotionally charged, immersive experience because it focuses on the development of its characters more than the calamity of the zombie apocalypse.
Marc Forster’s World War Z was effectively a hero-led blockbuster that included zombies, and it was driven more by action than the study of its characters or the global conflict that ensued. Comparative to the source novel, World War Z was an action epic, while the literature was an inquisitive anthology detailing the experiences of survivors and the study of how humanity changed since the onset of the apocalypse. Fincher’s latest clue-in to what World War Z 2 would have looked like indicates that the sequel would have been rooted in its characters and used action to accentuate its narrative much like The Last of Us.
World War Z Would Still Have Been Different From The Original Book
If David Fincher’s World War Z 2 proposal had transpired, he might have been able to alleviate fans of the novel who found the movie’s action-forward premise far too big a leap away from Max Brooks’s World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. However, when asked if his World War Z 2 conception had been a closer adaptation to the book, Fincher concisely replied, “No, no. But there is some talk of doing that.” Despite it all, World War Z 2 would have still been vastly different from its source.
Fincher’s response may be disappointing to hear, seeing that the franchise would’ve continued to deviate from the novel as an offshoot entity. However, his latest update also hints at the promise that someday someone will adapt the material faithfully. As of now, it’s not clear whether a potential World War Z remake has been seriously considered, but a proper adaptation of the source novel has been in demand since complaints emerged about the first and only movie. A reboot of the entire franchise in lieu of a World War Z 2 may be the best outcome for fans of Brooks’s novel, but for the moment, the World War Z universe is at a difficult standstill.
