11 Movies Where The Reshoots Were Painfully Obvious

3. World War Z

Rumour has it World War Z was a lot harder to make than it was to watch. It would take too long to examine all the behind the scenes stories but the thrust of it is that Brad Pitt hired a director who was ill-equipped for making a large scale blockbuster, and it cost everyone a lot of time and money. Things got so bad that Pitt brought in writer Damon Lindelof as a fresh pair of eyes to examine the footage and see how they could fix the movie.

His expensive suggestion was to shoot a brand new third act; one that replaced an expensive battle that took place in Russia. Lindelof felt that Pitt's character had turned into too much of an action hero and that the final ending was too dark. Surprisingly the studio agreed and scrapped the whole sequence.

This is evident in the movie as it suddenly takes a huge drop in scale. Up to that point each set-piece had been bigger than the last. Then suddenly the rest of the story takes place in a medical centre in the exotic land of Cardiff. Ironically this down scaling probably worked out better, as it allowed the movie to slow down and build tension. And there wasn't a CGI zombie in sight.

Still obvious though. Despite the troubled production the movie opened to strong box office so the effort was worth it.