Forster to direct Par's 'World War Z'

Straczynski to adapt Brooks' zombie novel

By MICHAEL FLEMING, TATIANA SIEGEL

Paramount has set "Quantum of Solace" director Marc Forster to helm "World War Z," based on the Max Brooks bestselling novel about a worldwide infestation of flesh-eating zombies.

"Changeling" scribe J. Michael Straczynski is writing the screenplay, and Brad Pitt's Plan B is producing.

Brooks -- the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft -- wrote a detailed tale in which a researcher for the U.N. Postwar Commission interviews survivors from countries all over the world, 10 years after the crisis, to gather a first-person post-mortem on a war that obliterated every country on the map.

Forster is unlikely to return for another James Bond installment.

As for "WWZ," "The genre always fascinated me, and when they pitched it to me, it reminded me of the paranoid conspiracy films of the '70s like 'All the President's Men,' " Forster told Daily Variety.

Par bought the book for Plan B in 2006, and it is one of several high-profile projects for the company headed by Pitt, who next stars for the studio in the David Fincher-directed "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."

Plan B is also prepping an adaptation of the novel "Eat, Pray, Love," with Ryan Murphy directing and Julia Roberts expected to star; the Fincher-directed projects "The Killer" and "Black Hole"; and a film about drug addiction based on two nonfiction tales: "Beautiful Boy" and "Tweak."

Forster is repped by CAA and Management 360.

Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117995840.html

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