In a 2019 interview, mere months after the sequel was finally shut down, Pitt gushed about Fincher’s vision for the film: “Ooh…it was good. It was really good. We had a really strong story, which [Fincher] shepherded. The things he had planned for it just haven’t been seen before.”

Mireille Enos, who plays Pitt’s wife Karin in the first film and was slated to return for the sequel, was similarly gutted by Paramount’s decision to halt the sequel, saying on podcast The Big Ticket, “We were all lined up to go. We had Fincher, we had a beautiful script, and then it just didn’t happen.”

What Would World War Z 2 Have Been About?

An alleged “leaked” synopsis of what Fincher’s version of World War Z 2 would have looked like made the rounds on the internet in 2019, although we definitely suggest you take the following with a grain of salt: the sequel apparently revealed that the vaccine developed at the end of the first film would only last for 36 hours. The story would supposedly revolve around the non-infected world, sequestered in safe zones, launching an offensive on the zombie hordes using a virus called E-29, which would make the undead attack each other, effectively winning the war. 

Whether this really was Fincher’s take on the material or not, what we do know is that if the sequel does ever rise from the dead, it’ll almost certainly have to be revised to reflect the panic, anxiety, and societal unrest caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Even the first film hits different now that we have endured such a devastating, global event, so it would be all but mandatory that the sequel reflect real-world events in some way, and speak to how our world has been changed by the virus.

Fortunately, Brooks’ novel does a fantastic job of imagining many of the sociopolitical issues that would arise during a global pandemic, sans flesh-eating corpses, of course, and a lot that still rings true in our post-quarantine world. It’s very possible the movie Fincher and Pitt were gearing up to deliver would really resonate with audiences now.

While Fincher isn’t exactly known for making big-budget action movies with dazzling visual effects, he does have a reputation for making incisive film and television that speak to the dark corners of human nature and the state of the world. Even if we never get to see this long-awaited movie, it’s fascinating to think about what a Fincher zombie blockbuster could have looked like and how it would have been received knowing what we know now.

Danofgeek