Screenwriter Damon Lindelof has been brought in to save Paramount’s troubled zombie movie World War Z.
The big-budget movie, in which Brad Pitt stars and is serving as one of the producers, has been troubled, and its release has been pushed from a December 21, 2012 release to June 21, 2013. It is now awaiting signficant reshoots. Lindelof, the Lost co-creator and co-author of Prometheus, is said to be focusing on the movie's third act. The production hopes to begin reshoots in September or October.
Z, based on the 2006 novel by Max Brooks, is intended to be a zombie picture with sociological and political overtones. It also stars Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale and Anthony Mackie. Marc Forster is directing the movie, which shot last year in various European locales.
The Hollywood Reporter.
I met Marc Foster last week in Zurich! He's a friend of my dad's former boss. Really down-to-earth guy!
ReplyDeleteYou have got to be fucking joking me. WHY does this guy have to stick his grubby little paws on everything that is good in Hollywood these days, and squeeze the life out of it?
ReplyDeleteI take it you didn't like how Lost ended?
ReplyDeleteOh never a good sign when a film is pushed back and then needs reshoots!
ReplyDeleteDidn't they completely changed the story anyway? The book was fantastic, but neither reshoots nor Damon Lindelof sound promising. I hate it when they screw up a book I love. Sad now.
ReplyDelete:)
ReplyDeleteRefer to this post that I wrote earlier this week: http://www.spoilertv.com/2012/06/damon-lindelof-returning-to-television.html#comment-545993658
Yes, because Prometheus is so brilliant.
ReplyDeleteNot at all. I can't think of any movie that went through reshoots and rescheduling that turned out to be great.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter how many reshoots they do, they already missed the point of the book.
ReplyDeleteThe article fails to mention that Lindelof also rewrote the sci-fi masterpiece that is Cowboys & Aliens (sar-cas-tic claps) — with 2-3 pairs of writers rewriting the same sci-fi movie, we couldn't really expect something compelling anyway, it's not entirely his fault. However, I think he's the one to hold responsible for Prometheus.
ReplyDeletePrometheus has many qualities (the directing and photography are stunning), but its script is not one of them.
The first 80 minutes of the film are quite enjoyable, albeit filled with plot holes, silly decisions and uncharismatic characters, but the last third is at times confusing, nonsensical or even plain stupid. Amen, Damon.
At first I loved the Lost series finale. Yes, it felt like a letdown but at the same time it was very emotional and all, but I realized the major setback a few weeks later : it annihilated a substantial portion of the enjoyment of my rewatching of the show, knowing what it was all for. Yes, it was his show, not mine or anyone else's, but the nature of his work is that it's bound to be judged by millions of people, and well, I'm not in awe of how it concluded, and I think it reflects poorly on the rest of the show when you watch it again from the beginning.
Anyway, any film in need of rewrites and reshoots a year after shooting ended isn't a good thing. But when it's such a big sci-fi film and that rewrites are mostly about the ending, and when it's done by the man behind the endings of Lost and Prometheus, it makes me more than skeptical about how coherent or religion-free it'll be.
Wow, I gotta say I was surprised to see such a lengthy response to why you dislike Damon. You do have very valid points on some of the faults of Season 6, but I think overall it was still good. But this could be attributed to the fact that I was always more invested in the characters than the mysteries of Lost so I liked that was present in the finale. And I see that we disagree on Season 4 and 5 of Lost as I thought they were the weakest of all 6 seasons, and I love sci-fi stuff.
ReplyDeleteSo while I respect your opinion that you have every right to have towards Damon and Season 6 of Lost, I don't think it's fair to say that he'll squeeze the life out of World War Z. You don't really know how it'll turn out before it comes out.
But thank you for the reference to your other post and thank you for providing me with another perspective of the show that we (I assume you were) obsessed with for 6 years.
You're right; maybe it is a bit unfair to say he'll "squeeze the life out of it". I'm not a big believer in judging things that I haven't seen.
ReplyDeleteBut, in my book, Damon's credit rating has been permanently downgraded. It'll take a lot to make me trust him again (especially since I can write such a long diatribe about why the Lost finale sucked, even two years have passed).
From some of the reviews I've heard about Prometheus (which he co-wrote), the problems from the final season of Lost have carried over; namely the raising of big ideas without any followup. I'll still watch it eventually, but as I said: He needs to earn my trust again.
And, I didn't watch Lost for six years. I started watching about three years ago, after season five wrapped up. I was all caught up in time for season six, and I watched that whole season live.
Toy Story 2 (no rescheduling though... they pretty much raced to the deadline.)
ReplyDelete;-D
That's fair, for you it'll take a lot to get you to trust him again, and I respect that you actually have reasoning for your dampered look on him. Many times, especially on the internet, there are those who just say "Oh I hate so and so", but has no reasoning for it.
ReplyDeleteI was not aware that he was involved with Prometheus, my only gripe with the movie is that it is a prequel to the Alien movies so I assume it would have to create these ideas and mysteries that would be answered or set up something in the Alien movies.
Perhaps that attributed to your dislike of Season 6? I had a friend who caught up when Season 5 started, and while he still enjoyed it, he said it was hard caring about some of it since you had to wait week-to-week instead of whenever you wanted. I'm not saying that's why you hate Season 6, but perhaps its just a factor of it.
Not good about reshoots and rewrites. After Prometheus, I'm worried about a title having Damon's name on it.
ReplyDeletewatched Prometheus yesterday and I have to agree, while it's incredibly well made technically, the writing is kind of weak, especially in the last act. They build some stuff up nicely but all of that does not really go anywhere and the only real answer the viewer would have anticipated from the movie - why humans were engineered, is never answered. Damon Lindelof seems to have developed a knack for presenting questions to the viewers but not answering them.
ReplyDeleteIf the last act of World War Z is what they need repaired, Damon is not the right choice in my opinion. He would have been a great asset during the film's development maybe, but not for this.
ReplyDeleteYeah, and I heard Woody and Buzz are real divas and impossible to work with.
ReplyDeleteLOL!
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, Lassiter wasn't on board from the get go and eventually they called him in towards the end because the movie wasn't working and he ended scrapping and re-working pretty much the whole story a couple of months before the release.
Thanks for explaining. I did not know that.
ReplyDeleteBTW: I wasn't mocking you before, I actually believed you when you said that there had been some trouble doing TS2. Just wanted to make sure in case it seemed that way because of my Woody/Buzz joke.
Oh God no!
ReplyDeleteNo missunderstanding and no explaination required what-so-ever.
I got the joke! ;D
They lost me at Brad Pitt, but damn, I love that book, it's a pity it'll probably be ruined and lost in translation from page to screen.
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