11 Reshoots That Actually Improved Movies
10. World War Z
The Reshoot: After it was determined that the original movie's ending was "abrupt and incoherent" and executives expressed dissatisfaction with Marc Forster's direction, a staggering seven weeks of reshoots took place to generate 30-40 minutes of new footage for an almost totally different third act.
How It Improved The Movie: The original final reel saw Brad Pitt's protagonist Gerry transformed into a bada** zombie killer and heading off to "reclaim" his family, which Paramount felt was too far away from the character-driven drama of the film's first half.
The final movie instead ended at the World Health Organisation, where Gerry discovers that deadly diseases can be used to mask the healthy from the zombies, though there was still much to be done worldwide.
While we'll never be able to compare the two side-by-side, it says a lot about the state of the original finale that Paramount invested so much time and money into fixing it rather than just cutting their losses.
Despite most expecting the film to bomb amid bad press, it ended up almost tripling its $190 million budget at the box office, and received mixed-positive reviews.