Not Worried About World War Z…Yet

Richard Brunton, over at [Filmstalker](http://www.filmstalker.co.uk/archives/2 008/12/jms_talks_world_war_z.html), has responded to J. Michael Straczynski’s recent comments on the upcoming World War Z adaptation. And he’s worried.

When I heard that director of the recent Bond snooze-fest Quantum of Solace Marc Forester was on board, I too was worried. I found QoS to be really dull and uninteresting, so I was convinced he was going to ruin World War Z.

But Straczynski’s recent comments actually give me hope. The book is, essentially, unfilmable in its written form. It follows a UN investigator who’s trying to document a world wide zombie outbreak. It’s made up of anecdotes that he’s captured from survivors, each of which has a different perspective of the catastrophe to the other. As a result, any cinematic retelling of the book should, if done right, be unlike any zombie movie ever made. For a start, the epidemic is over, contained. It’s not a threat any more. So the emphasis needs to not be on the threat that the zombies pose, but the effect that they’ve had on the world around us.

In order to do this, the film’s going to have to move around a lot, and is going to have to build up a picture of what went on. Straczynski’s comparison to Bourne doesn’t worry me - I don’t think he’s suggesting that the film is an action/spy thriller, I think he’s saying it’ll move around the world, and will combine thoughtful, less action focused moments, interspersed with some great set pieces. Which is exactly how the book needs to be filmed.

So I’m hoping this is heading in the right direction. The writer definitely has a grip on it, and by the sounds of it the director is in tune too. I’m not going to write Forester off simply because QoS sucked - I’m hoping that his interpretation of Bond doesn’t align with what I want from the character, and that the result was just one of those things. WWZ is a different film entirely, so you can’t equate the failure to do Bond right with failure here.

The key thing here is going to be the studio - the money men. The script needs an awful lot of backing and support, and those set pieces need to be pretty bloody special to punctuate the more talkative elements. If it’s done right, if everything falls into place and Straczynski’s (and more importantly Max Brooks’) vision is conveyed effectively onto the screen, it could be amazing.

Will the studio commit enough money and resources to do this right? Only time will tell. Keep your fingers crossed.

7 Things About Me

It’s Internet meme time at Is There Food, boys and girls. Oli over at The iBlog has, in the blogging equivalent of running up to someone, slapping them with your hand, and shouting “tag” - or “tick” as we used to say, but then “you’ve been ticked” doesn’t really have the same ring to it - picked me as one of seven people who must name seven things about their good selves. So, here goes:

  1. I am Daniel Woolstencroft, a recently turned 30 software developer from Leicester, England.

  2. My hobbies include gaming, film (particularly horror), and music. I like reading books, but for some reason rarely do. I used to go to the gym, but now cannot scare up enough motivation to move in its general direction.

  3. I adore my two sons, my wife, and my family. They mean the world to me, and I’m so, so lucky to have them.

  4. I used to write short stories when I was younger, and keep thinking about doing it again. In fact, a recent conversation on Twitter spawned the idea for Blog Fiction Day, which will happen eventually, I promise. Just probably not on Edgar Allen Poe’s birthday like I originally planned.

  5. I currently have 26 draft posts on Is There Food, some of which are actually complete but never got published. I also have a number of post ideas for my other blog Geeklike.me - but I haven’t gotten around to posting anything over there yet. I’m thinking film posts here, techie and personal stuff over there. I want to blog about being a Dad too, and that sort of content on a site full of rotting corpses just doesn’t seem right…

  6. I love zombies and apocalyptic fiction. It doesn’t really matter how bad it is, I’ll probably read it, watch it, or listen to it if it’s got flesh eating undead in it, or it involves the end of the world.

  7. I’m a self confessed Apple fanboy, and am reminded of this fact - and ridiculed about it - on a fairly regular basis by all that know me. I’m not completely taken in by the reality distortion field, but I am one of that special kind of geek who gets excited about every little Apple announcement despite himself.

And there we have it, seven factoids about me, myself, and I for your reading pleasure. And now, as is law with these things, I’m supposed to nominate seven more people who need to do the same thing:

Please check out the sites above, and the linked Twitter accounts, you might well find something you like.

Small print: these were the actual rules…

  • Link to the original tagger(s), and list these rules on my blog.

  • Share 7 facts about myself in the post - some random, some weird

  • Tag 7 people at the end of my post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.

  • Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.