With the critical acclaim and big box office success of the original movie, Brad Pitt will be returning to the zombie action horror story in World War Z 2, which will probably see a late 2015 release date if our estimates are correct. As well as Pitt (Twelve Years A Slave) continuing his role as United Nations investigator, Gerry Lane, the sequel to the 2013 zombie hit has also been confirmed to be directed by Jaun Antonio Bayona.
The Spanish filmmaker and director’s previous entries to the cinematic fold have included the critically acclaimed 2012 tsunami disaster drama, The Impossible, and his 2007 horror The Orphanage. If you take the the big disaster elements of The Impossible and combine them with the darker horror aspects of The Orphanage then you’re not a million miles away from the potential of World War Z 2, so Bayona is looking like a pretty good choice of director at the moment.
Apart from the addition of Bayona as the film’s director and Brad Pitt’s continuation in the lead role, very little is known as of yet about how the sequel will play out or when the actual release date will be. Based on the build up and conclusion of the first film though, we’d probably say that the solution they discovered to the problem of the increasing zombie horde turns out to be less of a definitive factor than they were hoping for and that as with all viruses, a mutation delivers a new strain of zombie attack.
For anyone that didn’t catch the first film when it was released, we can highly recommend it if you’re an action horror fan, or if you have the same zombie loving tendencies as Tina from Bob’s Burgers. Essentially, the premise was that a highly viral zombie outbreak occurs and Brad Pitt’s Gerry Lane turns out to be the perfect man to hunt down a solution to the problem to save the world and his young family. Read our World War Z DVD review page for more details.
There was a spin-off iOS and Android mobile game for the original film, but we’re hoping the sequel gets more of a full next-gen console production to build on the success of great zombie games like Zombi U. With the likes of Dying Light out later this year, there’s definitely an audience for the game, which would make a very cool movie tie-in.
World War Z 2 will be another project delivered by Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B Entertainment, which has also been the long standing lead on the rumoured Marching Powder movie, as well as recently delivering the BAFTA and Golden Globe winning Twelve Years A Slave. However, with the impending end to the production company’s affiliation with Paramount Pictures, the sequel will not be completed as a part of the long running partnership.
