14 DAY TRIAL // For the better part of 2011, Brad Pitt worked on a movie called “World War Z,” which was initially scheduled to come out this December but was pushed back to June 2013. Now, Vulture has learned that the project is in serious danger of never seeing the light of day.
The film not only stars Brad Pitt, but also features him as producer through his Plan B production company.
He was involved in it since its first stages and even fought hard to bring Marc Forster as producer – the same Marc Forster to whom he is not even speaking today.
As per a very lengthy report in Vulture, after many months of shooting in various corners of the world, which has sent the film's budget literally through the roof, “WWZ” is now in reshoots.
What's even worse, it still has no ending and Damon Lindelof, writer for “Lost” and “Prometheus,” was brought on board to see whether he could salvage anything from the film. He said he needed months on the script, not just a few hours as the studio had to offer.
Sources tell the movie-oriented publication that some weeks of reshoots preceded by some weeks of re-writing and followed by more production changes might still turn the film around.
“The studio is cultivating multiple options. One is to try scrapping [the ending] and trying something different: They want to construct an entirely new ending to the movie,” says a spy.
“The other is to try salvaging it, because decent action can be elevated, and even [expletive]-y action can be saved. This is not an unmitigated disaster; it is salvageable,” adds the insider.
Others insist that “WWZ” is dead in the water. It was a difficult a project to begin with and it was only made worse in time, despite the energy and money were thrown at it (and down the drain) to fix it.
The fact that Pitt is not speaking to his director of choice Forster isn't bound to make matters easier.
“Production sources tell Vulture that it is Pitt, not Forster, who has final approval over all the new pages generated by whatever writers work on the project over the next three weeks. And the communication breakdown between actor and director over how to reshoot it severely limits Paramount’s ability to foresee an end to production,” Vulture writes.
“Until the pages are approved, a budget cannot be calculated. And until a budget is tallied, the amount of time that will be spent to make the changes can’t be determined, either,” adds the same media outlet.
With reports like this one making the rounds, it's no wonder some, more skeptic fans are already saying the zombie apocalypse movie might never see the light of day.