9. Production Was Plagued With Problems
If you've been following World War Z's road to release, you might have read about how notoriously beset with issues its production was. According to
collider.com problems began when relatively journeyman director Marc Forster was not allowed to bring his familiar team along for the ride. Instead he was given more seasoned staff the likes of line producer Colin Wilson (Avatar), Oscar winning Cinematographer Robert Richardson (Hugo) and Oscar winning effects vet John Nelson (Gladiator) with whom it's reported didn't exactly work well next to the much greener director. Pitt was also almost entirely absent during pre-production as he was busy shooting Killing Them Softly and afterwards insisted on spending time with his family before his next engagement (which is fair enough). To top it off, in October a Hungarian anti-terrorism unit apparently raided the airport warehouse where production were storing 85 functioning assault rifles for use in the film and confiscated the lot of them. And this is just the tip of the iceberg - there were also reportedly several problems with the script and with the overall lack of solid directorial leadership (more on that later). Production problems almost never bode well for the overall quality of the finished product. Hell, just look at the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (whose production was famously marred by several bizarre issues). Great films are made by groups of men and women connected by trust, a desire to do good work and an ability to work together as a cohesive unit, all things which seem eerily absent in stories of World War Z's production.