World War Z: The original ending of the movie with Brad Pitt would have saved the saga

Warning, spoilers. The following article outlines the main plot of “World War Z” as well as its ending.

Mark Forster’s original World War Z ending, which was drastically different from the actual ending of the film, could have saved the saga. Loosely based on the book World War Z: An Oral History of Zombie Wars The Max Brooks film starring Brad Pitt, released in 2013, was a huge success. As Screenrant reports, a sequel was originally planned until Paramount canceled it in 2019 due to several logistical reasons. Brad Pitt still hopes it will happen one day.

Deemed too abrupt and incomplete, the original ending was reworked and Paramount spent millions of dollars rewriting and reshooting the last 40 minutes of the film. At first it was much more like the ending of the book, but the studio felt that it would be unsatisfactory for the audience. Perhaps more satisfying indeed, the epilogue we got to see in the cinema complicated things for a potential sequel, now hard to imagine.

Is the war over?

After the original World War Z ended, Gary Lane (Brad Pitt) joined the army and fought zombies in Russia. The plan was for him to spend years fighting there before finally finding a way to reconnect with his wife (Mireille Enos) and then return to the United States to save his family. That ending would be darker and less defined, but it would leave the franchise open for a potential World War Z 2.

The epilogue we saw on the big screen was completely different: at the WHO (World Health Organization), Gerry Lane realizes that zombies don’t attack the sick and unleashes an already known deadly virus that is stored at the WHO (and therefore has a cure). , to prove this. This – rather well received – ending provides an efficient way to defeat the zombies, making victory relatively easy. Treating WWZ as one movie, this plot pretty much ruins everything that gives the story hope. But if we’re considering a franchise, that finality makes future production difficult.

The main problem that the end of World War Z poses to potential sequels is that it seems to have solved the zombie problem. The path to victory is so clear and not so difficult to achieve, so everything points to the fact that the battle is won. So it’s hard to imagine a sequel that would question that. If the film, which remains one of the best in the genre, had a more open ending that didn’t resolve its main problem, the sequel would have been more of a necessity than a chore.

That being said, World War Z may still be eligible for a sequel. If the ending brought resolution and hope, there was still a war to be fought to actually win. A conspiracy based on this, although difficult to conceive, is therefore not impossible. And if Brad Pitt wants to continue…

While we wait to find out if we’ll get a sequel, World War Z can be found on Netflix (one more week), as well as Canal+ and Paramount+.