The problem with most people is that
they don't believe something can happen
until it already has.
We intercepted a communique from an Indian general
saying they were fighting the Rakshasha.
Translation, zombies.
The way that this project came about is in...
I believe it was the summer of 2006.
The manuscript for, at that time an unpublished book,
World War Z by Max Brooks, was sent to us
and we really responded to it.
We thought it was incredibly clever
and did something that was potentially very new,
which was to take zombies
and put them inside of a completely real-world scenario,
and also have something of global scale,
which felt like an amazing opportunity,
and we just fell in love with the project.
And luckily for us, Paramount ended up winning kind of an auction for the rights,
and that started a long journey of developing screenplays
that ultimately progressed to the place where we could make the film.
He wants a what?
Deadly pathogen.
With a high mortality rate.
But curable.
Brad had read a draft, and it dawned on him
how ambitious it was.
And I also think he is someone who appreciates very much
living borderless-ly,
and this movie was a way to understand
the geometry of the globe that he appreciates and lives by.
And I also think he was really taken with the notion of
showing what happens around the world
in reaction to a single event,
and not being localized.
It seemed fun and also challenging.
Plan B sent me the book one day,
and I didn't know anything about the book and I just started reading it,
and thought this was just a great read.
Then I called them and said, "This is something I'm really interested in,
"and I want to sit down and have a conversation with you guys about it."
So we met and we spoke about it, and talked about it.
And obviously, the book doesn't lend itself to a filming narrative
because of the episodic nature of the book.
And it has all these stories within itself.
It is set 10 years after the zombie war has ended,
and it is a series of interviews from people in all walks of life
who had completely different experiences of this war.
And so you get all these tiny snippets
and it creates a collage of what this experience might have been.
It is an after action report written for the United Nations
about what went wrong.
Who didn't connect the dots
in terms of allowing the zombie virus to get out of control?
And what made sense to me in looking at that narrative,
which is basically a series of interviews done after the fact,
to say, "Okay, for purposes of a film,
"what might make sense is to have a character
"who was that very same investigator
"trying to figure out what happened during the course of the movie.”
Was patient zero from India?
That's the problem.
There's so many potential sources in play
that no one knows where it began.
Every film has a patient zero and every virus has a patient zero
and that will tell you how it got started,
and that can tell you, therefore, how to stop it.
So, for me, the great challenge and the opportunity
was to take this book and turn it into a detective story.
If we knew where this thing started,
then we'd have a chance of developing a vaccine to stop it.
I think Brad is very focused on authenticity
and that things feel believable and real and logical.
And I also think Marc Forster comes from naturalistic filmmaking,
whether it's Monster's Ball or Finding Neverland, or his Bond film.
So I think he likes to be in reality.
I think that's where he also feels very comfortable.
So I'd like to think that the combination of elements
makes the film feel like it's really happening.
I think that the great thing is about Max Brooks' book,
he set the book in this very real frame,
and that sort of "framework of reality."
And that's what really interested me
because I was thinking I wanted to create a movie that feels very real.
You're in a world and feel like
this could happen right now, this minute, to any one of us.
And a lot of people are living constantly in this fear, at this day and age,
that the world can change any given moment.
And we have seen it change.
Like, the best example in recent history is obviously 9/11,
how everything changed from one moment to the next.
My guys will get you in, you assist the doctor,
pursue any leads, my guys will get you out.
I can't leave my family.
The film focuses on Gerry Lane, who is a UN investigator.
And you understand that he used to work in these places
where crises exist,
but now he sort of retreated more to focus on his family
and live a more normal life.
The notion was, what does it feel like if you're
in the middle of kind of your everyday goings-on,
and, all of a sudden, an enormous thing erupts?
Suddenly, when the cop cuts the mirror off,
it's the first beat of tension.
And then, really, everything starts to derail.
Remain with your ve...
The film, for me, is not just a zombie movie.
It's sort of a global epidemic, a global apocalypse.
And that's what the book does, as well.
And that's why the title sort of mirrors this global spread,
that it's not just really about zombies.
- You fought any Zeke yet? - Yeah.
- Where? - Philly. Newark.
- What about Houston? - St. Louis?
- Baltimore? - Atlanta?
Guys, I'll be honest with you...
I don't know of any place back home that's doing very well.
To work with Brad is incredible
because he's the star of the film and he is also the producer.
And he's a true artist.
And he's someone who has an impeccable taste,
and you can see that through his filmography,
the projects he chose as an actor and the work he has done.
And he's such a sublime and interesting actor.
And both of us have never done anything like this.
We both had to rise to the occasion and work through this genre,
which we both weren't familiar with,
but still create something fresh and new.
Okay, come on, guys.
Okay, baby doll, Daddy's got to go to work.
The family's so important, because ultimately,
one of the most important decisions in the film is,
if he either stays with his family and protects them
or he basically tries to save the world.
If I go, you, the girls, Tommy, have a place to stay.
If I don't, we're back in Philly tonight.
It was very important to choose as his wife
someone who has a strength, but at the same time has a vulnerability.
And I think Mireille Enos has all these qualities.
And most people are familiar with her on son' of the TV show, The Killing.
And she came in and did a reading,
and I thought her reading was so beautiful
because it was so truthful,
but at the same time there was this strength and this vulnerability,
and she had all the different layers
I just saw in that character.
Yeah, everything's okay. I'm okay.
That's the spirit.
I come from a cinema which is character-driven.
So that's the cinema I started with. The stories I started telling
were always character-driven movies, and that's what I connect with,
and what is the character's journey,
and how do I connect with that character emotionally?
And once I have that, you can go as big as you want
because you'll always remain with that.
You have to begin with a character
and then you can explore any world you want.