Forster’s World War Z scores No. 2 at U.S. box office

Marc Forster while directing Quantum of Solace

The Marc Forster-directed World War Z finished No. 2 at the U.S. box office this weekend, with $66 million in ticket sales, according to the Box Office Mojo Web site. It finished behind Monsters University at $82 million and ahead of Man of Steel, on its second U.S. weekend, at $41.2 million.

World War Z, with Brad Pitt as star and producer, shared some things with the Forster-directed Quantum of Solace: script problems and a high budget. Paramount Pictures, however, unlike Sony Pictures with Quantum, was willing to delay its movie so a new ending could be written and filmed.

World War Z, which concerns a mysterious plague that turns people into fast-moving zombies, cost an estimated $190 million to make, less than Quantum even with the reshoots and more elaborate special effects.

Forster and World War Z initially got some bad publicity about the reshoots (which delayed the film’s release from late 2012), including a VANITY FAIR STORY. But as the movie got released and reviewed, the publicity turned positive, including A SYMPATHETIC STORY ABOUT FORSTER on the Deadline: Hollywood site.

Zombie of Solace

Stop us if you’ve heard this before.

Vanity Fair has an ONLINE PREVIEW of a cover story involving director Marc Forster, a movie with a huge budget and an underwritten script.

Deja vu all over again? Here’s a preview:

“He took me through how excited he was when he read the book, what was exciting for him, the geopolitical aspect of it,” screenwriter Damon Lindelof tells Vanity Fair contributor Laura M. Holson in the June issue of Vanity Fair of meeting Brad Pitt to discuss the star’s troubled zombie project, World War Z.

(snip)

In her revealing report, Holson also speaks to director Marc Forster and Paramount executives Marc Evans and Adam Goodman about the many problems that plagued the set—which included re-writing and reshooting 40 minutes of the film to find a coherent ending—and, most astonishingly, how the budget ballooned to around $200 million.

Hmmm. Substitute the title Quantum of Solace for World War Z, substitute the figure $230 million for $200 million and substitute multiple writers including Paul Haggis and it sounds like you could be talking about Quantum of Solace, the 2008 James Bond film also directed by Marc Forster. Star Daniel Craig, as Skyfall prepared to start filming, made it sound as if making Quantum wasn’t a very pleasant experience.

If anything, the Vanity Fair story makes it sound like World War Z, despite costing about $30 million less than Quantum, was even more troubled that Forster’s earlier 007 film. One additional excerpt:

When it came time to watch the director’s cut, Holson reports, the room was silent. “It was, like, Wow. The ending of our movie doesn’t work,” says Evans. “I believed in that moment we needed to reshoot the movie.” After 10 minutes of polite discussion, everyone left. “We were going to have long, significant discussions to fix this,” he recalls thinking.