Film won't be like book, says World War Z writer

Writer Max Brooks has said that the forthcoming screen adaptation of his book 'World War Z' won't be anything like his source material.

Brooks says that the film, which stars Brad Pitt, will share the 2006 book's name 'and that's it'.

“I knew they were going to rewrite it,” he said. “I grew up in Hollywood. I knew it was going to go through a million changes.”


Brooks, who is the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, added in an interview with Mansfield University in Pennsylvania that he was invited to read the script, adapted by Matthew Michael Carnahan, 'The Cabin In The Woods' writer and director Drew Goddard and 'Prometheus' writer Damon Lindelof, but only once the film was being made.

“I said: Why would I read this? This is not the movie you're going to make. You're going to do rewrites and reshoots. That's what happens when you make a giant movie,” he said.

“My attitude is if you haven't invited me in to contribute, then fine. Go make the movie you want to make and I'll see it when it comes out.”

He added that he was concerned that fans of the book, which explores through various first-person accounts a decade-long zombie war, would not see certain popular sections on screen.

“There are a lot of college kids who have been waiting years to see the Battle of Yonkers and I don't know if it will be in there,” he said.

“I cannot guarantee that the movie will be the book that they love. And I'm in no position to tell people to see this movie or not see it. If I'm asked I say: See the movie as a movie and judge it as a movie.”

It stars Pitt as UN man Gerry Lane, alongside Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale, Matthew Fox and Bryan Cranston, directed by Marc Foster.

It's due out on June 21.