Drew Goddard had a monster-sized hit earlier this year with The Cabin in the Woods, a film adored by the horror-geek culture that made a comfortable $63.9 million worldwide. Fans expecting him to strike out with something wildly original for his next project might have to settle for this, instead.
Deadline reports that Goddard, and not his Lost colleague Damon Lindelof, is the one who took the latest pass at penning a new ending for Marc Forster’s World War Z, which stars Brad Pitt as the survivor of a zombie apocalypse. The site claims Lindelof “cracked a potential new ending of the film,” which had to commit to expensive reshoots to repair what apparently wasn’t working. But with Lindelof wrapped up in other projects, Goddard stepped in to actually pen the script rewrite.
That doesn’t mean it’s ready to shoot, however. Deadline adds that Christopher McQuarrie might be brought in to punch up Goddard’s pages. The studio reportedly is high on The Usual Suspects writer and the work that he did on Jack Reacher with Tom Cruise. But Cruise could want McQuarrie to touch up Doug Liman’s All You Need is Kill, which he plans to shoot once he wraps the sci-fi thriller Oblivion.
All of this sounds bad for World War Z, though if we’re being honest, a reshot ending isn’t the end of the world if it makes the finished film better. And bringing in idea guys like Lindelof and Goddard is a fantastic plan, so long as you give them the time to figure out how to properly conclude a meaty story. Deadline says Forster will be shooting the new scenes for World War Z, which moved its release date back to June 21, 2013.
