World War Z - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of World War Z or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to World War Z

[sara]

When Gerry goes to South Korea, the U.S. soldiers there are wearing 2nd Infantry Division patches on their uniforms. The 2nd Infantry Division is a real U.S. military unit that is based in South Korea in real life, as in the movie.

[francisco]

Reunites Brad Pitt with David Morse after 12 Monkeys (1995). Both worked on the movie, although they didn't share a scene together.

[amber]

It was hoped that Marc Forster would be able to focus on story and characters while his crew could guide him on action and effects, but not only was he unable to bring his usual team with him, the lack of a strong leader at the head of the project produced a muddled vision for what the film would be like. As late as three weeks before shooting was to begin in June 2011, Forster hadn't even decided yet on what the zombies would look like or how they would behave.

[sandra]

At the time, this was the highest-grossing film of Brad Pitt's career.

[violet]

Screen debut of Kingsley Ben-Adir.

[brent]

Originally, the film had a different ending: the plane lands in Moscow rather than crashing in Wales. The passengers are rounded up, and the elderly and sick are executed. Gerry is drafted into the Russian army. An unknown period of time passes, and we see Gerry fighting the zombies. He realizes the zombies are weak in the cold. The film ended with him getting back to the USA and leading a D-Day like invasion against the undead on the Oregon coast. The ending that was used instead made the movie less brutal and ended it with a glimpse of hope.

[kim]

Several of the scenes shot in Budapest, including a large-scale battle with the zombies in Moscow's Red Square, were dropped from the final cut in order to water down the film's political undertones, and steer it towards a more generally friendly summer blockbuster.

[phyllis]

Even though she is billed third, Daniella Kertesz (Segen) does not appear until almost halfway through the film.

[jessie]

Brad Pitt was most intrigued by the book's geopolitical aspects, and his production company Plan B, together with Paramount, spent $1 million on the film rights. However, it soon became clear that much of the geopolitics that Pitt was interested in would have to be dropped if they wanted the story to come together on screen. Furthermore, Pitt's production company, Plan B, had never taken on a project of this size, its experience limited to eclectic, low-budget dramas; their biggest film before this was Eat Pray Love (2010).

[kenneth]

"Segen" in Hebrew literally means "Lieutenant" and "blessing" in german.

[ivan]

In a high-six-figure deal, Paramount Pictures acquired screen rights to the Max Brooks novel "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War." Brooks' follow-up to the satirical "The Zombie Survival Guide" sparked a bidding battle, with Warner Brothers & Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way on the other side of the table from Paramount & Brad Pitt's Plan B.

[jesus]

Fady Elsayed was an extra in the film, though his scenes were cut from the final version.

[edgar]

After a bidding war with Leonardo DiCaprio's production company Appian Way, Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment secured the screen rights to the novel in 2007.

[aaron]

In the beginning of the trailer released in March 2013, while Gerry's family is having breakfast the radio in the background mentions a flight which landed without permission before martial law is declared in Russia. This is likely the infamous Flight 575 alluded to in the book. Before Flight 575, a few people were able to smuggle infected loved ones out of China, where the authorities were rounding up the afflicted to control the disease. Some unspecified zombie disaster befalls Flight 575, leading to greatly increased scrutiny and restrictions. (In J. Michael Straczynski's script, the pilots lose contact with the cabin, but don't know that it's because the plane is overrun with zombies. They make an emergency landing in the US, and an unsuspecting SWAT team is overwhelmed as soon as they open the cabin door.)

[bryan]

A total of 85 prop machine guns, rifles and pistols to be used for scenes filmed in Hungary, were confiscated by counter-terrorism customs officers in Budapest, Hungary after being flown in from London. Hungarian authorities said the guns could be activated by removing the screws filling the end of the barrels. Hungarian law requires weapons to be deactivated only if the process is irreversible. The movie's weapons supervisor, 'Bela Gajdos', commented that a permit for the weapons had been issued by Hungarian police. Reports claimed that main actor Brad Pitt was "furious" at the seizure but producers said it had not delayed filming.

[veronica]

Ed Harris and Bryan Cranston were originally cast in the movie, but both dropped out due to scheduling conflicts.

[ray]

Shooting in Malta for the Jerusalem scenes was a nightmare, with two film crews working side-by-side, hundreds of extras, and all sorts of minor costs escalating the budget. One day, shooting had to be delayed for several hours because the caterer hadn't prepared enough food. When work in Malta finished, the wrap-up crew found a stack of purchase orders related to the cast and extras that had been casually tossed into a desk drawer and forgotten; the amount totalled in the millions of dollars. And all the while, the script still wasn't finished, with work still being done on the third act.

[beth]

In the book, 'Patient Zero' was originally from China not South Korea as in the film.

[kenneth]

The filmmakers had initially filmed a climactic battle scene set in Russia, and the crew moved to Budapest to film it there. This ending was scrapped, but parts of it ended up in the film's epilogue.