After trouble behind-the-scenes, rewrites and reshoots, many saw Paramount’s big-budget apocalyptic horror WORLD WAR Z as the likely victim of the crowded summer blockbuster season. The intense, globe-hopping survival thriller, based on Max Brooks’ acclaimed novel, may have lacked bite (and genuine buckets of blood) for an action-packed zombie pic, but it surprised many with an opening weekend box-office gross of $60-plus million on the US.
Directed by Marc Forster and starring Brad Pitt (who also produced), WORLD WAR Z has shown it has legs, not just in it’s domestic run but also internationally. This weekend the film crossed a benchmark of $500 million worldwide. That assures the film as Pitt’s highest grossing movie in his career and pretty much guarantee’s he’ll return for the much mooted sequel.
Personally, I enjoyed the film and is a solid enough 3 starer in my eyes but it does suffer from the pressure to reach as wide an audience as possible with that PG-13 rating. A hard R-rating might have seen a rise in critical-acclaim but could have been the nail in the coffin everyone, even the studio, were expecting. A good decision?
Source: Deadline
