Paramount just announced that the release date for the World War Z sequel is June 9, 2017.
Brad Pitt is returning to star in the film, and Steven Knight (Locke, Redemption, and Eastern Promises) will be writing the script. Juan Antonia Bayona (The Impossible) is directing.
What Will the Sequel Be About?
The first film deviated quite a bit from the source material by Max Brooks. With Steven Knight behind the script, this iteration will likely be of higher caliber than the first but there’s never a guarantee.
During an interview with Indiewire, Knight said that he was starting the sequel with a “clean slate,” which could be good or bad.
“I thought, ‘why not? What fun.’ It’s not quite like the other, we’re starting with clean slate. When they’ve signed off we’re on.”
This could mean one of the two things. Either Knight is going to take inspiration from the book directly this time around and he’s writing the sequel as if the first movie never happened. Or, he’s not taking inspiration from the book at all and will instead write the whole thing from scratch.
If it’s the latter, we have absolutely no idea what’s in store in terms of the plot.
The book offered an oral history of the outbreak, following the beginning of the pandemic to its tragic end. That’s a much different tone than an action blockbuster would take unless Pitt were tasked with delivering narration the whole way through.
It’s likely the sequel is going to follow Brad Pitt the entire time — just as the first did — though we’re not entirely sure what he’ll be doing. The end of the first film was open enough to leave a long list of possibilities for what could happen. We’ll just have to wait and see.
For those of you that have read the book, what did you think of the first film? Are you excited for the sequel or indignant?
