The promotion of World War Z kicks off in earnest this week. Yesterday we had some brief first look footage, tomorrow we’ve been promised the first full trailer and today we have a teaser poster. It’s a bit of a minimalist one, pretty much just showing us the film’s logo.

But what’s it’s all about, well here’s a synopsis: ‘The story revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself. (Merielle) Enos plays Gerry’s wife Karen Lane; Kertesz is his comrade in arms, Segen.’

The footage yesterday suggested this will be a zombie movie on a scale we’ve never seen before. Let’s just hope the production issues, which included a delay from Christmas 2012 to summer 2013 so they could completely rehoot the ending, won’t result in a disappointing film.

It always raises eyebrows when a film need extensive reshoots, as it suggests a film’s in trouble (but not always). However if a script needs major rewriting for those reshoots, it’s pretty much a guarantee a film is under major stress (although with more hope the problem can actually be sorted).

That’s what’s happening with the Brad Pitt starrer World War Z, as Prometheus screenwriter Damon Lindelof has been hired to rewrite the script for World War Z, before the zombie project undergoes extensive reshoots.

Back in March Paramount pushed the adaptation of Max Brooks’ novel from a December 21 release to June 21, 2013, and more recently it’s been revealed the reson for the delay is because of the need for around seven weeks of reshoots. Lindelof will reportedly focus his script work on the third act, although no specific story details were given. The reshoots will commence in September or October. Matthew Michael Carnahan wrote the initial screenplay.

Marc Forster is directing a cast that includes Brad Pitt, Matthew Fox, Mireille Enos, and James Badge Dale. The story revolves around a United Nations worker (Brad Pitt) who travels the world, interviewing the few human survivors of a worldwide zombie apocalypse.

Although this news is worrying, it’s doesn’t mean the finished film will be a disaster. After all, Men In Black III’s script was so problematic they shut down production partway through filming to sort it out, and that’s turned out to be a decent success. (Source: THR)

Next Christmas it’s going to be all about the zombies, with Brad Pitt taking on a big budget brood of the undead in World War Z. The film is currently in post-production, but it seems Paramount and director Marc Foster are already keen to turn the adaptation of Max Brooks’ novel into a trilogy.

The LA Times says, ‘For Pitt, the big sci-fi thriller also represents his strongest bid to have a big film franchise of his own, which might be viewed as the missing piece of his career jigsaw puzzle. Forster and Paramount Pictures each view World War Z as a trilogy that would have the grounded, gun-metal realism of, say, Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne series tethered to the unsettling end-times vibe of AMC’s The Walking Dead.’

This is the first we’ve heard about World War Z being expanded into a franchise, and it isn’t known how far ahead plans are for parts two and three, or if it’s just something loosely planned that they’ll look properly at if the first film becomes a hit. In the film, Brad Pitt stars as a United Nations employee who travels the world, interviewing survivors of a worldwide zombie infestation. It’ll be in cinemas in December 21st.

General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser