World War Z
Short description
World War Z follows Gerry Lane, a former United Nations investigator who has left his hazardous field work behind for a quieter life with his wife and daughters. That life collapses during a traffic jam in Philadelphia, when crowds of people suddenly turn violent and spread an infection through bites within seconds. The family barely reaches safety aboard a government vessel, where Gerry learns the outbreak has already reached most of the globe. In exchange for keeping his family protected, he agrees to return to service and join the search for the origin of the disease, hoping that understanding it will lead to a way to stop it. His journey takes him across several countries and into constant danger, while the future of human civilization hangs on what he can find.
Marc Forster directed the film, the eighth of the thirteen features he has made to date, arriving between Machine Gun Preacher and All I See Is You. Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof wrote the screenplay, and Brad Pitt produced through Plan B Entertainment while starring as Gerry Lane. Mireille Enos plays Karen Lane, with Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Ludi Boeken and Matthew Fox in supporting roles.
The production, mounted by Paramount, Skydance, Latina Pictures and Plan B Entertainment, carried a budget of about 200 million dollars and returned roughly 532 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7 out of 10 from around 779,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.9 out of 10 from more than 17,000 votes. The critics' rating stands at 6.2 out of 10 from 277 reviews, somewhat below the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The US Air Force does not use the An-12 aircraft.
- Filming took place in several areas of the UK, including Cornwall, where scenes at the UN and the Ministry of Defense were shot. Filming also took place in Glasgow (Scotland), where the streets were specifically made to look like those in Philadelphia, with many American cars, trucks, and taxis. Even street signs were brought in from the US. Part of the film was shot in Valletta, Malta.
- Ed Harris and Bryan Cranston could have played roles in this film, but left the project due to scheduling conflicts.
- Peter Capaldi played the role of a medical employee of the World Health Organization, listed in the credits as “W.H.O. Doctor.” Two months after the film's world premiere, it was announced on BBC that he had been cast as the twelfth incarnation of the Doctor in the series “Doctor Who” (2005).
- Robert Richardson was initially hired as the film's cinematographer, but he was later replaced by Ben Seresin.
- The main character flies from Jerusalem on a Belarus Airways plane. However, an airline with that exact name does not exist.
- At the beginning of the trailer, which appeared in March 2013, at the moment when Brad Pitt’s family is having breakfast, the radio reports on a flight that landed without permission, before martial law was declared in Russia. This is very similar to the infamous zombie story flight 575, from which infected passengers disembarked after landing.
- Konstantin Khabensky played a Russian fighter, but these scenes were cut from the final release of the film, although the actor’s name is listed in the credits.
- The airplane Jerry Lane flies in changes throughout the film. In some scenes it's an An-12, in others a Lockheed C-130 Hercules.
- In the early minutes of the film, news footage shows clips of the Chelyabinsk meteor fall, captured on a dashcam on February 15, 2013.
- The Pepsi bottles in the office of the World Health Organization in Cardiff (UK) have American labels indicating calorie content.
- In scenes where Pitt’s character forcefully plunges a crowbar into a zombie in the laboratory corridors, he frantically tries to extract the tool from the body of the killed zombie upon seeing another infected, which doesn't happen immediately. However, when he finally manages to do so, we see a perfectly clean, raised crowbar!
- Hollywood’s interest in “World War Z” was so great that Pitt’s studio and its partners at Paramount had to participate in an auction where their main competitor was Leonardo DiCaprio’s team from Appian Way. Both actors dreamed of fighting zombies, but Pitt’s pockets proved deeper, and in 2007, Plan B acquired the rights to “World War Z”.
- In the car (a "home on wheels"), Jerry Lane's (Brad Pitt) daughter finds a rifle with an optical sight in the closet, after which Jerry Lane takes the rifle from his daughter and puts her behind the wheel. When they arrive in Newark, New Jersey, and stop near the supermarket, leaving the car, Jerry Lane takes the rifle from the wall of the vehicle.
- Hungarian police seized over 100 weapons from a film set. These were not stage props, but actual combat weapons. The shipment, which arrived by plane, included 85 fully functional automatic rifles. The use of real weapons in filmmaking is not uncommon, but in this case, the documentation for the shipment was not properly completed.
- In the apartment of the Mexican family, Jerry Lane (Brad Pitt) attaches a kitchen knife to a rifle with tape, but after killing the first zombie, when he is standing near the door and aiming at the zombie running up the stairs, the kitchen knife is no longer on the rifle, and in the next frame it is back in place.
- The film is based on Max Brooks' novel 'World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War' (2006).
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