Screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski talks about 'World War Z'
Now that Quantum of Solace director Marc Forester has been brought in to direct the adaptation of 'World War Z' pre-production is moving forward. I am surprised that there were quite a few people didn’t like the new James Bond movie. I think that Forester is going to do a great job adapting this movie for the big screen.
The film is being produced by Brad Pitts Plan B production company and the script for 'World War Z' is being written by TV, movie and Comic book author J. Michael Straczynski who recently talked with MTV about how things are coming along.
“We talk about it as a thriller, the closest comparison being ‘The Bourne Identity,’” explained Straczynski, who’s also penning a “Forbidden Planet” revisiting. “Most zombie movies to this point have been small, focusing on a few people in a house. And this has got real scare. You’re in India with hundreds of boats trying to get out of there with a tidal wave of zombies. The scale of what we’re doing here is phenomenal.”
A first draft of the script has already been completed back in spring. They have been holding off on everything until a director was brought in.
“Now that Marc is here, I’m working with his notes to make one final pass on the script,” said Straczynski. “Our hope is to get it moving into production by the first of the year.”
The Novel is written from the perspective of a United Nations agent that is reporting on the event of the zombie outbreak. This is done through interviews and eyewitness statements. Straczynski plans to keep that story angle as much as he can. In a way the movie will show how the book was produced in Brooks’ zombie-infested world.
“The fictional concept of the book is that its written by someone with the UN, so let’s tell that story, Let’s show the book being written. We follow this guy all over the world as he goes on these interviews, and he has his own personal story as well. You’re cutting between the past and the present, how he got to this point.”
“It has that international feel to it, and because it goes backward and forward in time, we can cherry-pick our favorite moments in the book, Some of it is crazy in scale. It’s huge. It’s as political as the book was. And it ends with that book being completed.”
It seems like they are going about making this movie the right way. This could be the biggest most epic zombie film ever made. I hope they can keep the film from becoming disjointed. What do you think?