Still, one would be hard-pressed to look at this as a through-and-through success story. It all began with Michael Straczynski, of 'Babylon 5' fame.
That ended up being the case because a small army of writers wrote and rewrote the script many times all the way through the lengthy production process. The movie that ultimately hit theaters is a big, global action-adventure flick that hardly resembles the novel in any way, shape, or form. It proved to be an issue (more on that in a bit).įirst, they needed to set about adapting Brooks' novel, which is essentially a bunch of intimate, first-hand accounts of the zombie apocalypse. The director had never worked on an effects-heavy blockbuster such as this, though he did have the also troubled 'Quantum of Solace' under his belt.
Pitt hand-picked Marc Forster ('Monster's Ball') for the gig. Ultimately, Brad Pitt and his company Plan B landed the rights in 2006, with Paramount becoming the big studio partner. The movie's journey really starts with the book, which generated great interest from various studios even before its publication.
