Once upon a time, David Fincher‘s follow-up to 2014’s “Gone Girl” would have been a sequel to the 2013 blockbuster “World War Z.” But Fincher’s entry into blockbuster filmmaking never happened, with Paramount eventually scrapping the project by 2019. But what did one of Hollywood’s most distinct visual stylists have in mind for the sequel? Deadline reports (via GQ UK) that Fincher described his take as similar to a hit HBO series with a similar backdrop.
“It was a little like “The Last of Us,” Fincher said in a new interview. “I’m glad that we didn’t do what we were doing, because “The Last of Us” has a lot more real estate to explore the same stuff. In our title sequence, we were going to use the little parasite… they used it in their title sequence, and in that wonderful opening with the Dick Cavett, David Frost-style talk show.”
Marc Forster‘s 2013 film stars Brad Pitt as a ex-UN investigator trotting the globe to find a cure for an ongoing zombie apocalypse. Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, and Damon Lindelof‘s screenplay adapted Max Brooks‘ 2006 novel. Mireille Enos, James Bade Dale, and Daniella Kertesz also star. The film did just okay with critics, but it made $540.5 million at the global box office, good enough for Paramount to greenlight a sequel.
But plans for a follow-up got continually derailed. Directing duties initially went to J.A. Bayona, but after he exited, Fincher climbed aboard to steer the film toward a Summer 2017 release. But scheduling delays due to Fincher’s “Mindhunter” kept pushing back production, with Paramount also balking at the director’s budgetary demands; cheaper than Forster’s film, but still steep. THR also speculates that the Chinese government’s ban of zombie-related movies also derailed the project, as it would lose one of its top international markets.
Paramount has since moved on from a potential “World War Z” franchise, but with “The Last Of Us” setting all kinds of records for HBO, that’s probably just as well. Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann‘s post-apocalyptic drama is based on Naughty Dog‘s 2013 videogame. The show stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as survivors traveling across a collapsed United States ravaged by a mass fungal infection that turns people into zombie-like creatures. Season 1 of the series received unanimous critical acclaim, as well as an astounding 24 Emmy nominations.
So maybe Fincher is right to be glad he didn’t helm a “World War Z” sequel after all. But it would’ve been interesting to see the director tackle the blockbuster format. Maybe he has something similar in mind after “The Killer.”
