Why World War Z Is Probably Doomed

There have been quite a few articles warning us that Brad Pitt’s World War Z will be a dud... a bomb... a flatulent schnauzer. It wouldn’t surprise me. What’s interesting though is the reason they think it will be a bomb compared to why I think it will be a bomb. They are, of course, wrong.

WWZ is a zombie movie. It’s based on a novel by Max Brooks and the story is basically about the UN trying to stop the outbreak. Yeah, I know there’s more to it... ask me if I care and you can find out all you want about it here => LINK. Seriously, aren’t we done with zombies yet? There’s a million fricken zombie movies already and they’re all the same! A retarded chimpanzee with a camcorder can made a zombie movie these days! Why make another one? &^#%$%$! I am looking forward to it.

Anyhoo, Brad Pitt is producing this turkey and it’s been a mess. In particular, the ending as originally shot was considered abrupt and incoherent and it left the studio in shock. Paramount Studio President Marc Evans described it thusly, “It was like, ‘Wow, the ending of our movie doesn’t work!’” So they went about re-shooting it. They spent between $15 and $20 million to re-shoot the ending and now production costs have blown past $200 million into Battleship and John Carter territory (another $125 million will be spent on marketing). Sadly for them, most everyone apparently agrees that they made the ending worse.

As an aside, they say they needed to re-shoot “the ending,” but they apparently re-shot 40 minutes of film. That’s more than just the ending, that’s a whole new film!

So now Wall Street thinks the film is doomed because it had production problems which caused cost overruns. Hence, no one will see it. Hollywood types think the film is doomed because it now has a reputation for being a bad film. Hence, no one will see it. Personally, I don’t buy it. The public doesn’t care about production management, they just care about the quality of the film. As for the perception of the film being lousy, that won’t kill the film either... if it’s good. What that will do is cause audiences to move slowly and to wait to hear word of mouth. If the film passes that test, it will do well. If it doesn’t, it will bomb. In fact, they can probably save the advertising money because studio ads won’t matter at this point.

Anyway, I think the film will probably bomb. And what tells me that is this one idea that keeps popping up about why they needed to re-shoot the ending. Said one insider on the topic:

“The original ending was meant to launch a trilogy, but it took Pitt’s character down an obvious hero path — battling zombies mano-a-corpse in Russia — and it was implausible and unsatisfying.”

Do you notice any key words of doom in that? How about “was meant to launch the trilogy.” Yep. Screwed. When you set out with the idea of using your current product as a means to sell people more stuff in the future, you are asking for trouble. People go to movies because they want to see stories, they don’t go because they want to be prepped for future shakedowns.

This reeks of Golden Compassism. That was a film that (putting aside all its other garbage) failed at a fundamental level because the story never engaged the audience because it was constantly setting up sequels. . . sequels that never came, mind you. It constantly felt like they were showing you things and telling you, “Ok, well, that doesn’t matter now, but remember it for the sequels, will ya?” Forget it! Audience want everything in a movie to wrap up in that movie. Yes, your villain can escape in the sequel and start over again, but he needs to be stopped in this film. Yes, sometimes like in Empire Strikes Back, your resolution can call out for a sequel. But you can’t treat a film as a primer for future films. Audience’s don’t want to feel like they just paid to see part of a film. And if that’s the case with WWZ, then audience will stay home.

Indeed, I am hard-pressed to think of a single time when this model has worked where a film is merely a set up for future films. Perhaps, the only time it’s worked is Back to the Future II and that not only angered many people, but it was already a sequel working with characters the audience had learned to love in the first film, so it wasn’t as jarring to be told there would be more. The Lord of the Rings worked too, but that seems like it’s a special case as that’s a widely beloved trilogy of books that just contain too much to do as a single film. I don’t see WWZ having that kind of cache with the public, nor do I see what can’t be done in two hours in a zombie film.

If Team Pitt set out to make a third of a film and pass it off as a complete film (with two sequels coming) then he’s a fool. He should have made this a television series where people look less for a complete story and instead look for relationships with characters.

Thoughts? Zombies, sequels?