Hollywood
Brad Pitt set to return for long awaited World War Z sequel
Edward Berger will direct Paramount sequel more than a decade after 2013 hit
MUMBAI: The dead are rising again, and this time Brad Pitt is getting back in the zombie business. More than a decade after World War Z turned an undead outbreak into a global box-office phenomenon, Paramount is closing in on a sequel with Pitt set to return and Edward Berger attached to direct.
The follow-up will reunite Pitt with a filmmaker who has been making waves with films including All Quiet on the Western Front and Conclave. Dennis Kelly, who won a Tony for the book of Matilda: The Musical and has created several British thriller series, has written the screenplay.
Pitt will also produce through Plan B Entertainment alongside Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, while Berger will serve as an executive producer.
Based on Max Brooks’ 2006 bestseller World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, the original film, directed by Marc Forster, transformed the source material into a large-scale disaster thriller.
Pitt played a former United Nations worker racing across the globe to find a way to stop a rapidly spreading zombie outbreak. The 2013 film faced its own behind-the-scenes apocalypse, with its third act rewritten and reshot as the production budget ballooned.
The gamble ultimately paid off at the box office. World War Z grossed more than $540 million worldwide and became a major hit for Paramount.
A sequel has been circling Hollywood ever since, but the project has repeatedly hit dead ends. Earlier versions were linked to directors J.A. Bayona, who later helmed Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and David Fincher, a frequent Pitt collaborator.
The project gained fresh momentum after Skydance took over Paramount in 2025 and made a World War Z sequel one of its priorities.
Pitt already has another project with Berger in the pipeline. The pair collaborated on The Riders, an A24 psychological thriller that is currently in post-production.
The actor is also set to headline Paramount’s survival drama Heart of the Beast, directed by David Ayer, which is scheduled to open on 25 September.
For World War Z, meanwhile, the long wait appears to be entering a new chapter provided the zombies stay dead long enough for the cameras to roll.
