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Script details start to leak for World War Z film

Trust me, this post is of interest to influenza and disease fans.

No doubt about it, I am a sucker for zombie flicks.  Even mention a new zombie movie, and I will probably check it out.  To me, nothing says "apocalypse" like the vision of hordes of the undead, feasting on human flesh.  And, up until recently, no one did a zombie story for film better than George A. Romero. 

I had the great opportunity to meet George Romero in 1978 (or was it 1979?), right after his classic Dawn of the Dead was released. He was lecturing at Florida Atlantic University and I was still living in South Florida, so I made the drive to Boca Raton and sat through his extremely entertaining lecture.  I was very familiar with his films Night of the Living Dead and The Crazies, as well as Dawn, and I asked him how he came to make all his male protagonists black.  He shrugged and said he wasn't quite sure, but I thought it confirmed Romero's keen eye for social comment.

But I digress.  Hollywood finally "found" Romero, and as his budgets grew, his edge wore down a bit, just like when your favorite starving artist/musician finds commercial success.  Sure, the albums sound fine, but the edge is gone.  Now I have not seen Diary of the Dead, but Romero's previous two zombie flicks were a bit stale.  And zombiedom in general was in dire need of reinvention and waited for that catalyst.

Lo and behold, that catalyst took form and substance, courtesy of Max Brooks.  The son of Mel Brooks and the late Anne Bancroft, Max burst upon the zombie scene with his Zombie Survival Guide, the definitive way to stay alive when the unburied dead start to rise again.  An unqualified runaway success, the Guide is in its umpteenth printing and is readily available at local bookstores.

But Max was not content to just write one novel.   He followed up that success with a book that is one of the most entertaining and horrifying books I have ever read, World War Z:  An Oral History of the Zombie War.  Set ten years after the official conclusion of the war, Max is the writer commissioned by the UN to get the real story on the war, the initial outbreak of the virus in rural China, the official government denials, and how the zombie plague spread to the whole world.

The result of that report should be of great interest to readers of this Blog, as well as followers of diseases, pandemics and geopolitics.  I geniunely do not want to spoil the experience for you, so let me just say that the origins of the plague and the methods used to spread it will ring familiar to most.  Brooks still manages to come up with a few things we have never thought of yet!  Also familiar to flubies will be the government foot-dragging, denials and underestimation of the nature and impact of the plague.

World War Z is a gripping read, with equal parts Tom Clancy and George A. Romero (Max makes no bones about his affinity for Romero, and he dedicates the book, in part, to him. The photo at left is of Brooks interviewing Romero at Comic-Con 2007).  The book, while epic in scope, moves swiftly and in a very readable, very satisfying way.  Brooks' character moves from nation to nation, across the entire planet, interviewing survivors and documenting horrifying story after horrifying story.  Each story is entirely plausible, if you buy the initial premise that the dead are rising and dining on the living.

World War Z was being optioned even before the hardcover went on sale, which was not surprising considering the subject matter, the best-selling success of Guide and the name Brooks.  Father Mel had even taken to the talk show circuit and airwaves to promote Guide, which makes one long to hear those interviews!  "Oy, those zombies hocken me ha'chinik!"

Suddenly and quite happily for the Brooks family, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt started bidding against each other for the film rights to World War Z.   DiCaprio's Appian Way Productions (partnered with Warner Brothers) fought Pitt's Plan B company (aligned with Paramount).  Brad Pitt decided that a major, big-budget zombie flick would make lotsa moola and coughed up the funds to buy the film rights.  Warners, meanwhile, redeployed its zombie strategery and sewed up "300" and "Dawn of the Dead" remaker Zack Snyder for a film called Army of the Dead.  So both studios get high-profile zombie flicks for their future 2009-2010 release schedules.

Now back to Z.  The first thing Plan B did was to hire veteran scriptwriter, Marvel Comics writer and Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski to fashion a screenplay.  Straczynski had just adapted the book The Changeling for Clint Eastwood (!) and was available to write Z.  The script itself was completed before the Writers Strike and was delivered to Plan B at year's end.  That script has now somehow been leaked to a couple of movie fan Websites, and by all accounts it is quite impressive.  Fans of Joe (as I hear he likes to be called) Straczynski should not expect anything less than greatness.  It is being compared to such excellent cinema as Children of Men and Zodiac, and is leaving those who have read the script longing for directors such as David Fincher, Alphonso Cuaron or even Peter Jackson or Spielberg!  After you have read World War Z, you will understand why:  It is an epic work, spanning continents and leaving one with disturbing images that will stay with you for many weeks afterward.

Some are speculating that the script is of sufficient magnitude, depth and quality that Pitt himself might be cast in the title role.  No doubt that Max Brooks, a handsome lad himself (photo at left), would be satisfied.

Have you noticed the sheer number of big-budget plague-related films in the past few years?  Started by the British classic 28 Days Later, and now including Invasion (a viral, updated remake of Body Snatchers), I Am Legend, the flu pandemic reference in Children of Men, the British virus movie Doomsday, and the soon-to-be-released M. Night Shyamalan thriller The Happening, it could be debated that Hollywood may actually be doing a better job of mentally preparing people for an eventual pandemic than the government.  Consider the pandemic-related bonus supplements on the I Am Legend and The Invasion DVDs (Invasion's features none other than Mike Davis, author of The Monster at Our Door).

And then wait in breathless anticipation.  Because we ain't seen nothin' yet.