World War Z (2013)

World War Z is a 2013 American action horror film starring Brad Pitt as Gerry Lane, a former United Nations investigator who travels the world seeking a solution for a sudden zombie apocalypse. Inspired by the 2006 novel by Max Brooks, the film was directed by Marc Forster, with a screenplay by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, and Damon Lindelof, from a story by Carnahan and J. Michael Straczynski. The supporting cast includes Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale, and Matthew Fox.

Pitt's Plan B Entertainment secured the film rights to Brooks' novel in 2007, and Straczynski was approached to write and Forster to direct. In 2009, Carnahan was hired to rewrite the script. With a planned December 2012 release and a projected budget of $125 million, filming began in July 2011 in Malta, before moving to Glasgow in August and Budapest in October. The production suffered setbacks; in June 2012 the release date was pushed back and Lindelof was hired to rewrite the third act. He did not have time to finish the script, so Goddard was brought in to finish the rewrite. The crew returned to Budapest for seven weeks of additional shooting in September and October 2012, ballooning the budget to a reported $190 million, although some publications have listed it as high as $269 million.

World War Z premiered in London on June 2, 2013, and was theatrically released by Paramount Pictures in the United States on June 21. Reviews were generally positive, with praise for Pitt's performance and for the film as a revival of the zombie genre, but criticism of what some felt was an anti-climax and a lack of faithfulness to the source material. World War Z was a commercial success, grossing over $540 million, making it the highest-grossing zombie film of all time. A sequel was announced shortly after the film's release, but was cancelled in February 2019, reportedly due to budget issues and China's ban on zombie films; a sequel was again announced in 2026.