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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - June 21st

"WORLD WAR Z" released in 2013

Brad Pitt stars as Gerry Lane, a former United Nations investigator who must travel the world to find a way to stop a zombie pandemic, based on the bestselling novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks. Fans of the book (which I very much include myself!) were eagerly awaiting the release of World War Z... and I think it's pretty safe to say most of us weren't disappointed, becoming the highest-grossing zombie film of all time!

Watch the World War Z trailer!

Check out the video supplemental at the bottom of today's blog

for more clips and behind the scenes videos!

Retired UN investigator Gerry Lane (Pitt) and his family, wife Karin (Mireille Enos) and daughters Rachel and Constance (Abigail Hargrove and Sterling Jerins) were enjoying a typical morning in Philadelphia, when odd news stories and events quickly escalate into a city-wide panic as hordes of ravishing zombies overtake the city. Barely escaping with their lives, they are rescued with the assistance of Gerry's former colleague UN Deputy Secretary-General Thierry Umuntoni (Fana Mokoena). Umuntoni explains that he needs Gerry to accompany one of their best scientists Dr. Andrew Fassbach (Elyes Gabel) to a US military base in South Korea where they believe was the original source of the zombie plague. Reluctantly leaving his family, Gerry embarks on a journey taking him from South Korea, then to Jerusalem where is helped by Mossad agent Jurgen Warmbrunn (Ludi Boeken) and IDF soldier Segen (Daniella Kertesz), all the while evading constant zombie attacks during his investigation that could save mankind from extinction!

Produced by star Brad Pitt's production company Plan B Entertainment, World War Z was directed by Marc Foster (Quantum of Solace). Early on they conceived the concept of the picture to be more reminiscent of 1970s conspiracy thrillers. Screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski however identified spy film The Bourne Identity as an appropriate comparison. With this tone in mind, the script was rewritten by Matthew Michael Carnahan before production began in July 2011. Also joining the cast with Pitt was James Badge Dale (as US Ranger Captain Speke), David Morse (playing an unnamed former CIA operative imprisoned at Camp Humphreys) and, in his feature debut, newcomer Fabrizio Zacharee Guido as Tomas, an orphaned boy who helps the Lane family escape Newark.

Filmed on loaction in Malta, Glasgow and Budapest (filling in for Jerusalem, Philadelphia/Newark, and Moscow respectively), production was almost halted when Hungarian elite counter-terrorism customs officers raided a warehouse storing over 85 assault rifles, sniper rifles, and handguns that had been flown into Budapest overnight on a private aircraft for use in the filming! The film's producers had failed to clear the delivery with Hungarian authorities, and while the import documentation indicated that the weapons had been disabled, all were found to be fully functional. No charges were filed in the incident, but it made worldwide news. Several of the scenes shot in Budapest, including a large-scale battle with the zombies in Moscow's Red Square (for which there was 12 minutes of footage), were dropped from the final cut in order to water down the film's political undertones, and screenwriters Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof were brought in to rewrite the entire third act! The re-shoots coupled with other overages caused the budget to balloon to around $190 million, before additional scenes were filmed at the Pfizer building at Discovery Park in Sandwich, Kent for scenes where Gerry tries to find a cure for the zombie pandemic. Filming officially wrapped on 3rd December, 2012.

Initially scheduled for release by Paramount and Skydance on December 21, 2012, due to the re-shoots the release date was pushed to June 21 the following year, earning a massive $3.6 million from Thursday night and midnight shows (and $45.8 million on its opening weekend). Eventually grossing over $540 million worldwide, World War Z is the highest grossing zombie film of all time!

Despite the huge box office, critical opinion of World War Z were certainly mixed. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a 3.5 out of 4, saying "It's entertaining as hell" and it provides "nearly non-stop action", while Joe Neumaier of The New York Daily News said that World War Z "is no summer thriller. It's an anemic actioner that fosters excitement like dead limbs as it lumbers toward a conclusion." Author Max Brooks publicly stated that he felt the film had very little in common with his book beyond the central storyline, preferring Straczynski's original screenplay that was more a mockumentary told in a series of interviews and flashbacks about the zombie outbreak, ten years after it happened. The film was going to explore the psychological after-effects and societal changes that had occurred, but was deemed "too intellectual" by Foster which led to Carnahan's rewrite.

Love it or hate it, World War Z almost reinvents the zombie-genre as a fast-moving, ravenous horde - the scenes of the fall of Jerusalem being the perfect example of a new breed of "Zeke".