Brad Pitt’s dystopian, world zombie epidemic (again) sequel has been spoken about for a while. It has now been reported that English writer Dennis Kelly has been hired to pen the re-write of the living dead follow up. Pitt will return as producer alongside David Ellison, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, the team of producers from the first film.
Kelly is known mainly for his British drama sci-fi series Utopia for Channel 4 and for the British comedy series Pulling for BBC Three. Kelly also wrote the 2014 Jude Law film Black Sea, which saw Jude Law as a submarine captain on the hunt for a rumoured submarine in the Black Sea loaded with gold.
The original 2013 World War Z film was written by a team of writers including Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, Damon Lindelof and J Michael Straczynski and saw Brad Pitt’s character Gerry Lane, an ex United Nations employee, called back into work to help fight against a zombie disease outbreak that is threatening to take over the world. The film is based on a Max Brooks 2006 novel ‘World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War’.
The sequel will see Pitt reprising the role of Gerry Lane but no other cast members have as yet been announced. Whilst Kelly has been brought in to rewrite the screenplay there are no details about what the plot will entail. The original was directed by Marc Forster, a German director known for Bond film Quantum of Solace (2008), Peter Pan story Finding Neverland (2004) and Monster’s Ball (2001). The sequel has brought in Spanish director J. A. Bayona who has previously worked on The Impossible (2012) and Spanish horror The Orphanage (2007).
With Kelly now in the seat as writer the zombie apocalypse x 2 is set to be entertaining, given how well Utopia was written. The film is set for release June 9, 2017 and is hoped to be as successful as the original, which grossed $540 million worldwide. But with the saturation of zombie based films and TV shows currently offered to audiences it is yet to be seen if audiences will remain interested, but Kelly is sure to make it original.
