Movie Rigths for World War Z

oxygen_old

I see Leonardo de Caprio and Brad Pitt just finished bidding contest for World War Z movie rights with Pitt winning out.
Spoilers below….

Now I have no problem with massive big Hollywood action block busters, especially when it’s something on this scale, but would anyone else really like to a movie of just a sequence of interviews as in the book? Some of the interviews were very emotive, such as the interview with the man from Radio Free Earth, who described the job of people to monitor distress calls, few of whom didn’t commit suicide. Or the sensei from Japan, who was very nearly the sole person not to evacuate Japan. And some of them had decent action, just as the Japanese teenager who escaped a city overrun with zombies. There was even an occasional zombie, such as the frozen zombie thawing in Alaska, or the undersea zombies tagged for monitoring.

I know the BEEB couldn’t afford the rights, but its something they could do really well. It would only take 7 or 8 of the best interviews, make them 10ish minutes ago. Add another 5 mini interviews, and it would be a watchable movie.

In the words of Kent Brokman, “That’s my 2 cents.”

scriba

I'm never sure what counts as a spoiler these days so beware this post...

I must admit I wasn't exactly gone on the idea of a movie on WWZ myself. I always thought that HBO might do a good job of it, with some 'Band of Brothers' style episodes for the war bits, and that mix of dramatized action with the occasional first-person documentary-style discussion.

As a movie, they may base it around one or two of the accounts, or even worse, take a standard hollywood disaster movie template (like 'earthquake' or 'towering inferno' or more recently 'the day after tomorrow') and just introduce new characters, adopting the universe WWZ is set in, but ignoring the actual accounts in favour of merging incidents into a new story. Probably with Tom Cruise. The ballbag.

Great book by the way folks, a thoroughly enjoyable read, and a truly great horror book, in my opinion.

sceptre

It's highly unlikely that you're going to see any interviews in whatever comes out as a movie. They're buying the story, the characters and the words. After that they can make a narrative out of them as they like. Which is probably what they'll actually do.

Here's your classic example: Pushing Tin (1999) was "based" on an article called "Something's Got To Give", written by Darcy Frey for the NY Times Sunday supplement in 1996. Anything you see as plot in the movie? None of that was in the article. They were buying 1) the right to use it so that no-one else could and 2) the genesis of the idea in the original piece of writing. That's almost certainly what happened here. No-one would spend any significant amount of money if they were planning on making a movie of an interview or series of interviews. Them wot make movies are many things but quite a few of them want to see their investment returned. And judging frmo the few synopses I've taken a brief look at in the past minute or so (never having heard of the book before), there's already a narrative there in the book, even as a sequence of interviews. Frankenstein and Dracula are both written in an epistolary style so the entire horror genre has a precedent for piecing together a narrative from different sources in one volume and making successful movies from it.

Incidentally, my apologies for making my post primarily about movies but that's where the OP led me. Depending on the journey of the thread, it could end up at home here or on the film board (I don't think it really belongs on the zombie survival board:))

iguana

oxygen wrote: »

I see Leonardo de Caprio and Brad Pitt just finished bidding contest for World War Z movie rights with Pitt winning out.
Spoilers below….

Welcome to 2009, what's it been like wherever you were for the last two years?

Plan B won the rights in 2007. Marc Forester (Quantum of Solace) was hired to direct. J. Straczynski (Babylon 5, The Changeling) was hired to write the script, which was leaked in March 2008. Everyone who read it loved it - the first review is here.

This year it was announced that the script is being re-written by Matthew Michael Carnahan, they are also looking for a new director. The main rumour is that the original script was too expensive and it's now feared by fans that the movie will not be as international as the book.

Dades

oxygen wrote: »

Now I have no problem with massive big Hollywood action block busters, especially when it’s something on this scale, but would anyone else really like to a movie of just a sequence of interviews as in the book?

The movie will be made as a movie. Whatever they need to change to make it visually engaging, they will.

The book will still exist as a book, regardless of how the premise is treated on the screen.

scriba

Dades wrote: »

The movie will be made as a movie. Whatever they need to change to make it visually engaging, they will.

The book will still exist as a book, regardless of how the premise is treated on the screen.

Very true, and it brings up an interesting question. Do people (in general) think that all works can be successfully translated from one medium to another? It's all very well translating a narrative novel or historical account into a working piece of film, but certain structures do not lend themselves to being successfully reproduced in another medium, WWZ probably being a case in point.

In the changes to make it more visually compelling, in the process embracing the strengths of film, possibly at the expense of certain compelling aspects of the book, at what point does the link between the film and the book become tenuous? And should they be considered (or marketed) as one and the same?

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that maybe not everything should be made into a movie. I'm being quite pedantic at this stage, but I'd like to know how other people feel about this. It's not that I don't like film adaptations, I've enjoyed many of the recent DC graphic novel movie adaptations, especially Watchmen (primarily for its - mostly - faithful rendition of the story).

And does there seem to be a decline in writing exclusively for the medium of film? Hollywood seems to view 'literature' as a trawling ground for its projects. Thoughts?

oxygen_old

I agree with all above post, but my point is still the same. I would still like to see a mockumentary style of film, of just the interviews of experience people had of the war. I think this documentary style would add alot more realism to a zombie outbreak than actual Zombie war footage.

World War Z might still turn out to be a great movie about a zombie outbreak and I know Plan B dont want to waste the movie rights making a movie in this format but maybe a promotional released tv show of the interview footage, or the DVD release could have a B reel of interview footage.