Brad Pitt’s World War Z Sequel Is Officially Happening, With Conclave’s Edward Berger Directing
More than a decade after the first film turned Brad Pitt into a globetrotting zombie hunter, Paramount has officially closed the deal on a “World War Z” sequel. The studio confirmed on September 18 that Pitt is set to return alongside Conclave director Edward Berger, who steps in to direct after years of false starts left the follow-up stuck in development hell.
The Deal That’s Finally Real
Pitt returns as Gerry Lane, the former United Nations investigator who spent the first film racing to find a cure for a global outbreak, and produces through Plan B Entertainment alongside Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. Berger also serves as an executive producer. Dennis Kelly, the writer behind the TV series Utopia and the book for Matilda the Musical, is penning the script, which like the original film draws from Max Brooks’ 2006 novel “World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.” Plot details for the sequel are being kept completely under wraps for now, and no release date has been set.
Why Berger Got the Call
Berger, who won acclaim for All Quiet on the Western Front and Conclave, isn’t a new collaborator for Pitt. The two just wrapped filming on A24’s The Riders, a drama adapted from Tim Winton’s novel that’s currently in post-production without a release date yet, and their working relationship there is reportedly what led Pitt to pitch Berger on World War Z. Berger is also attached to direct a Lance Armstrong biopic starring Austin Butler, expected to begin production next year, making the zombie sequel just one of several major projects now on his plate.
Edward Berger’s Conclave won widespread acclaim before he signed on to direct the World War Z sequel.
A Decade of False Starts
The original 2013 World War Z grossed over $540 million worldwide, a haul widely cited as the biggest ever for a zombie movie, but Paramount has struggled to get a follow-up off the ground ever since. J.A. Bayona was attached to direct as far back as 2013 before exiting in 2016, and David Fincher later took the project considerably further along, reportedly amid a ballooning budget and other production hurdles, before Paramount shelved that version. Max Brooks himself summed up the limbo a few years back, saying “the last I heard, it was dead in the water.” Fincher and Pitt instead reunited on Netflix’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood sequel, leaving the door open for Berger to finally get World War Z moving again.
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Picture Source: Paramount Pictures, Focus Features
