Although 2013’sBrad PittvehicleWorld War Zwas the most expensive horror movie ever made, the zombie action thriller wasn’t particularly scary. Big budgets can be a blessing and a curse for horror movies. On the one hand, bigger budgets theoretically mean more money for special effects. This means that the monsters and the murders can be more inventive and realistic, which is generally seen as a good thing. After all, nothing sinks a good horror movie quite like hilariously unconvincing, cheap special effects. However, there is another side to this equation that makes high-budget horror high risk.
World War Z 2: Why It’s Taking So Long & Will It Happen?
World War Z 2, the sequel to the Brad Pitt zombie blockbuster, isn’t on the cards anytime soon, but fans still hope Paramount will see the light.
Since even greathorror movies can bomb at the box office, it is always risky when an entry into the genre gets very expensive. The bigger a movie’s budget, the more viewers it must attract. Horror’s intensity puts many viewers off the genre altogether, while the genre’s gore often preludes younger viewers from watching its movies. Thus, big-budget horror movies usually need to tone down the scares and the violence to attract big box office paydays. The result isbox office bombs that kill horror franchisessince, ironically, they are too big and expensive to feel like real horror movies.
The 2013 Zombie Movie Was Extremely Expensive For A “Horror”
Although 2013’sWorld War Zwasn’t a box office failure, the apocalyptic zombie horror was notably un-scary. An adaptation of the 2006 novel of the same name,World War Ztells the story of Brad Pitt’s Gerry Lane, a UN investigator tackling a worldwide zombie apocalypse. With a budget of approximately $190 million (which was rumored to have grown even higher),World War Zearned $540 millionupon release. Despite this, the movie never received a sequel or spawned a franchise. This is at least in part because, for all of its budget,World War Zwasn’t remotely scary.
World War Z’s globe-hopping zombie story had some moments of moderate tension and some minimal gore, but the movie was more concerned with large-scale action set-pieces than generating genuine scares. Pitt’s hero is never in true peril throughout its draggy runtime, whileWorld War Z’s family-friendly PG-13 rating means the movie rarely gets gruesome. Compared to the boundary-pushing small-screen seriesThe Walking Dead,World War Zfelt more like an international thriller than a zombie horror. This wasn’t helped by a surprisingly optimistic ending which, alongside the lack of serious scares, madeWorld War Zfeel disappointingly anodyne.
World War Z Wasn’t Even That Scary Compared To Other Zombie Movies
World War Z’s Military Action Couldn’t Compare To 28 Days Later Or Romero’s Movies
World War Zhas the misfortune to arrive after a string of truly scary zombie movies, which made its shortcomings as a horror movie more obvious.World War Zmight have been a serviceable survival thriller, but director Danny Boyle’s seminal smash hit28 Days Laterhad offered viewers an era-defining zombie movie only a decade earlier. EvenWorld War Z’s better extended cutnever came near matching the intensity of28 Days Lateror its sequel28 Weeks Later, and this issue was compounded by their plot similarities.
Zack Snyder’sDawn of the Deadremake provided a far scarier, grislier, and bleaker zombie apocalypse in 2004.
Both the 28 Days Latermovies andWorld War Zfocused on military responses to zombie outbreaks, but only the former franchise could turn this material into something terrifying. To make matters worse forWorld War Z, Zack Snyder’sDawn of the Deadremake provided a far scarier, grislier, and bleaker zombie apocalypse in 2004. LikeWorld War Z, Snyder’sDawn of the Deadgave viewers a look at the frenetic outbreak of a zombie apocalypse. However, this earlier zombie horror was immeasurably more effective, much like28 Days Later.
World War Z Is More Of An Action Movie Than An Horror One
World War Z’s Horror Elements Were Consistently Downplayed
AlthoughDavid Fincher’s canceledWorld War Z 2might have fixed this issue, the biggest problem with the zombie thriller was primarily one of tone.World War Zwas more of an action movie than a horror movie, even though its monsters were zombies. Much likeZombielandgrafted a sweet rom-com storyline onto the shambling corpse of the zombie horror sub-genre,World War Zadded zombies to a jet-setting military thriller. The problem was that this approach made Pitt’s hero too safe.
Viewers couldn’t convince themselves that Pitt’s well-equipped, highly trained former UN advisor was in any real danger throughoutWorld War Z’s story. This would be fine in an ordinary action thriller, where the protagonist’s quick-thinking heroism is the movie’s main appeal. However,World War Zwas ostensibly a horror movie. The adaptation fell short since, despite its giant body count, there was never a sense of real danger in its action movie plot. As such,World War Z’s failure to putBrad Pitt’s lead character in danger resulted in a horror movie that was very costly, but hardly scary.
