World War Z Originally Had A Much Darker Ending
When it first came out, Marc Forster’s zombie apocalypse thriller World War Z surprised many with its over-performing box office take. World War Z did so well that Paramount Pictures was quickly, at the time, putting together plans for a sequel movie.
World War Z was supposed to be a trilogy, but somewhere along the way, things took a wrong turn, with the production halting and stumbling into a mess of rewrites and reshoots that seemed to suggest World War Z would be dead on arrival.
But when World War Z found success, we couldn’t help but wonder what the movie’s original ending was like, before it all became an epic mess. When the original screenplay was unearthed, it painted a very different ending from the one on screen.
If you’ve seen World War Z, you know the film takes a drastic tonal and narrative shift two-thirds into the movie. Although the end result is surprisingly cohesive, there are still many questions surrounding what Damon Lindelof (Star Trek Into Darkness) and Drew Goddard (The Cabin In The Woods) — who were hired to fix the film’s third-act problems — brought to World War Z.
Apparently, the zombie film’s ending was originally more action-packed and gruesome than what we watched in the final cut. In early promotional materials for World War Z, there were numerous images of the Kremlin in Moscow in flames and ruins. These haunting images are not in the film at all, but point to a climactic third-act battle in Russia.
As Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) and Israeli soldier Segen (Daniella Kertesz) board an airplane to exit Jerusalem, instead of crash-landing near a World Health Organization facility, the World War Z script originally had them land safely in Moscow. Once there, the sick and elderly passengers are immediately executed, but Gerry Lane is forced into military service to help fight off zombies.
World War Z then cuts to many months later. Gerry has lost contact with his family and is now an efficient zombie-killing machine. He uses a killing tool called a “Lobos,” which is a shovel/axe hybrid that is mentioned in Max Brooks’ best-selling novel. The Russian troops are also divided by religion, the thinking being that maybe they’ll fight better as a unit if they all share the same religious beliefs.
After a stretch of zombie battles, Gerry gets his phone back, so he calls to see if his family is safe. Karin Lane (Mireille Enos) picks up the phone and we find out that she is in a refugee camp.
This is where World War Z takes the darkest turn yet, as Karin exchanges sex with a soldier for protection. The soldier in question was one of the soldiers who saved the Lane family on the New Jersey rooftop at the beginning of the film.
If you have a keen eye, you might have noticed that actor Matthew Fox (Lost) was one of the soldiers during the helicopter rescue. Sadly, because of the rewrites, Fox was written out of World War Z.
When Gerry finds out that his family is still alive, he escapes Russia and sets out to reunite with them. The original ending was open-ended enough to make room for a sequel, possibly involving Gerry’s voyage back to the States.
Now it’s unclear how much of this original ending was shot, but it’s pretty interesting to see how much the movie deviated from its original screenplay.
Rewrites and plot shifts aren’t uncommon for movies, especially major ones. But the story of World War Z shifted more than most you will see when it comes to a big-budget movie. Was it the right move? Probably since it became a little more accessible for a wider audience. In terms of “realism” though? The original ending is likely more in line with the brutal world this had become.
