David Fincher, who was set to direct a World War Z sequel before it was canceled by Paramount, is revealing some of the plans he had for the follow-up film.
In an interview with GQ UK, published online Wednesday, the Fight Club filmmaker said the zombie movie would have been a “little like The Last of Us,” the hit HBO series starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey that premiered earlier this year
“I’m glad that we didn’t do what we were doing, because The Last of Us has a lot more real estate to explore the same stuff,” he explained. “In our title sequence, we were going to use the little parasite … they used it in their title sequence, and in that wonderful opening with the Dick Cavett, David Frost-style talk show.”
The 2013 hit film starring Brad Pitt and directed by Marc Forster was an adaptation of the Max Brooks novel of the same name. It followed former United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt) as he traveled across the world to try and stop a zombie epidemic that is threatening to destroy humanity.
After the movie grossed $540 million worldwide, a sequel was quickly put into motion, but it went on to face several obstacles, including the initial director, J.A. Bayona, eventually departing the project. Fincher later signed on, but in 2019, Paramount halted preproduction. Sources told The Hollywood Reporter at the time that budgetary issues came to a head.
When Fincher was later asked by GQ UK if the sequel would have been a closer adaptation to the original book, he responded, “No, no. But there is some talk of doing that.”
