World War Z plagued by problems, and not the fun zombie kind

For one thing, the budget (which nearly killed the project in the first place) has already ballooned to over $170 million, with "five weeks of complex reshoots" still to come. And as part of those, Prometheus screenwriter Damon Lindelof was recently drafted to completely redo the film's third act—an indication of how overall "not fully baked" and directionless the project has been from the beginning, with THR terming it a "seemingly headless enterprise" that is, again, not in a fun zombie way. Much of that can apparently be blamed on director Marc Forster, the Quantum Of Solace director whose reportedly shaky experience with overseeing special-effects-laden tentpoles is already drawing negative comparisons to Andrew Stanton's John Carter, with many in Forster's crew expressing frustration and even threatening to quit.

As a measure of Forster's inability to take charge, THR points out that, as late as three weeks before shooting began, the director had yet to decide "what the zombies would look like and how they would move," which is a fairly crucial part of any zombie movie. Instead, as one source put it, "There was a lot of spinning of plates, a lot of talking. [But] they did not have a plan"—something that may fly on The Walking Dead, say, but not in a big-budget Brad Pitt movie. So as a result, Paramount has already moved the film from its intended 2012 release date all the way to next summer, even though it maintains it's confident that it can be salvaged. "It’s a great first 45 minutes, maybe even an hour," according to one source's faint praise—though as of now the prospects aren't looking so good for getting much further beyond that.