10 Behind-The-Scenes Dramas That Failed To Derail Famous Movies

2. World War Z's Ending Is Completely Changed

World War Z Brad Pitt
Paramount Pictures

Like Rogue One, World War Z was forced to reshoot and rework its entire third act, with the difference being that nobody expected the latter to be any good.

So when it was quite good (and made over $500 million worldwide) it came as a complete shock.

World War Z's many problems can all be traced back to one silly decision; the choice to start shooting the film without a finalised script. This resulted in a rushed ending that was missing a lot of the footage that it needed, causing studio executives to order reshoots totalling almost an hour of extra material.

These reshoots saw the film's budget increase to around $190 million, a staggering $65 million more than initially anticipated.

Some of the problems with the third act included the fact that Brad Pitt's character was mowing down zombies like an action star, which was completely at odds with the way the first part of the movie presented him, as an everyday family man.

The film was changed to fix this problem, as well as lowering its political undertones and making it more your typical summer crowdpleaser.

The increase in budget and numerous issues led Paramount executives to think that there was no way the movie would make its money back, so imagine their surprise when it opened to $66 million and a 63 Metascore. Not too shabby at all.

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!