Many people can ping into memory every time Brad Pitt’s zombie movie, World War Z is mentioned. There is no shortage of stories or distinctions to his credit. The facts read like a Hollywood cautionary tale — one that industry insiders still discuss in hushed tones. A sky-high budget production with numerous dramatic leaks, big enough to shut down city blocks and test the patience of studio executives, World War Z infamous suffered from endless rewrites and reshoots that extended into its post-production phase. Entire acts were scrapped and reinvented. The film’s troubled third act became the stuff of legend, requiring an extensive recast that drove up costs and pushed back release dates.
Yet, against all odds and defying all the pessimistic predictions of critics and Hollywood observers, the film raked in a staggering $540 million at the worldwide box office, turning what should have been a disaster into a blockbuster success story. Since then, fans of the film have been eagerly awaiting a sequel, hoping to see Brad Pitt’s Gerry Lane return to fight the hordes of the undead once again. They didn’t know Max Brooks, the author of the original World War Z The novel that started it all was expanding its zombie canon all the time, creating new stories and continuing to build the world that had captivated millions of readers long before the cameras rolled.
The World War Z Expanded Universe Everyone’s Been Waiting For Is An Underrated Graphic Novel
Max Brooks’ most underrated work, The Extinction Paradeis the project World War Z fans have been foaming at the mouth ever since. Born from a short story by Brooks, the story ups the ante from its zombie predecessor, pitting them against hungry vampires running out of prey. The monster mash is a perfect match; a global zombie outbreak that wipes out humanity is of course the cause of the vampire famine. In other respects, however, the launch The Extinction Parade is every B-horror movie fan’s dream. This makes it a harder sell for those averse to pulp. Fortunately, the schlock-prone “vampires versus zombies with humans stuck in the middle” premise is in the safe hands of Max Brooks.
Previously in the original World War Z book, Brooks has crafted an immersive oral history of a zombie apocalypse. The Extinction Parade flexes similar muscles as the author, turning what could have been a fever dream into a game of passion. It’s not the most subtle of stories, but Brooks’ graphic novel is a spin-off perfectly suited to World War Z fans – more of a parable about societal systems and hierarchies than a sort of Freddy vs. Jason show.
Don’t worry though: The Extinction Parade it still delivers on the gore. Him and his sequel with a title tinged with violence, The Extinction Parade: War! refuse to shy away from the blood and guts typically associated with zombies and vampires and their respective stories. But these moments hit hardest when they align thematically with the rest of the saga’s moving parts – depicting zombies as the many, vampires as society’s secret few. The literal bite becomes World War Z and the vampire fans walk through the door, but The Extinction Parade’Brooks’ figurative teeth and his willingness to sink them into a class metaphor that can hook readers throughout his two volumes. Vampires are presented by Brooks as an elite ruling class, figuratively plump after feeding on humanity for centuries without repercussion. The zombie outbreak is a more public devastation to the population, but it’s a scandal to the vampires. When the zombie outbreak threatens their food supply, their immortality is threatened for the first time, plunging them into their first existential crisis.
Brooks and Cáceres’ creativity thrives outside of Hollywood interference
World War Z is a Hollywood anomaly. A production disaster that not only survived to see the light of day, but actually broke the bank. And more power to the film and its producers. HAS The Extinction ParadeCredit to, however, the comic book series works in part because of its life outside the blast radius of the very studio interference that Brad Pitt’s zombie movie had to deal with. The Extinction Parade must flourish without rewriting. No recovery. Just Brooks and artist Raulo Cáceres doing their thing.
Brooks’ trademark, between his no-nonsense approach and love for the genre and medium, fits Cáceres perfectly. The former’s works are retro-cool, with dark lines and a baroque aesthetic that catapults each carefully crafted silhouette off the page. It’s the kind of undeniably fun and dramatic cocktail that World War Z fans should prioritize research. The Extinction Parade not only offers fans of Pitt’s project a zombie alternative to the World War Z the creator of the story, but this one was designed completely devoid of all the chaos behind the scenes of this film. Brooks and Cáceres worked within the creative freedom of the graphic novel, building the world seamlessly and advancing their artistic vision through two focused installments.
Extinction Parade is better than any possible World War Z sequel
The misfortunes that tormented World War ZThe filming of was well documented. Brad Pitt himself called the first cuts “atrocious”.” The budget increased from $150 million to $190 million. Entire acts were scrapped and redone. Director Marc Forster clashed with Pitt over creative direction. Damon Lindelof was brought in to rewrite the third act months before its release. The final product bears little resemblance to Brooks’ oral history novel, beyond sharing a title and featuring zombies.
Pitt even admitted that the type of thematic exploration The Extinction Parade hangs his hat was the kind of darling who must have died during the malignant production process of World War Z. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he confessed: “At the time, I was really interested in a more political film, using the zombie trope as a sort of Trojan horse to ask, ‘What would happen to sociopolitical lines if there was a pandemic like this?’ Who would be at the top? Which countries would be powerful and which would be the most vulnerable? adding, “We really wanted to explore that, but it was just too much. We got bogged down in that; it was too much to explain. It sucked the fun out of what these films are supposed to be.”
The graphic novel format gives Brooks what an adaptation of Brooks’ works simply could not: the time to develop ensemble characters, the space to explore its complete world from multiple perspectives, and the lack of leash to run wild to bring it to life. Here, he has no one to answer to if he decides to kill off a character, to devote an entire double page spread to a single moment – whether it’s producer’s notes or test audiences demanding rewrites, this story simply has more room to breathe than its predecessor. Legendary Entertainment optioned the story in 2014 for a live-action adaptation, but no development news ever followed. This means The Extinction ParadeThe legend of is safe, for now.
If anyone is still waiting World War Z following, The Extinction Parade should satiate. After being stuck in development hell for nearly a decade, The Extinction Parade offers something potentially better. With such disastrous returns in every category except the box office, World War Z 2 could result in a zombie movie flop beyond belief. This comic book alternative, however, is a comprehensive, uncompromising story that expands Brooks’ zombie universe into new territories while retaining the careful allegory and journalistic-style testimony of his story. It contains the very elements that propelled the Brad Pitt-starring film into a surprise box office hit.
- Release date
-
June 21, 2013
- Runtime
-
116 minutes
- Director
-
Marc Forster
- Writers
-
Damon Lindelof, Drew Goddard, Matthew Michael Carnahan, J. Michael Straczynski, Max Brooks
- Producers
-
Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Ian Bryce, Jeremy Kleiner
