Brad Pitt's 'World War Z' Had A Very Different Original Ending

KEY POINTS

"World War Z's" ending saw Brad Pitt's character discovering that zombies aren't attracted to unhealthy hosts
The original ending was scrapped because the actor and the studio didn't like it
The team had to reshoot and spend more than the budget because of this

Brad Pitt-starrer "World War Z" had to face many problems before hitting the theaters, and while most of the fans were shocked to see a cohesive film, the original ending would have been very different from what they got to see.

After carefully securing his family during the onslaught of the outbreak, Pitt’s Gerry went on a mission to find the source of the virus that turned the infected into a flesh-eating monster. In the latter part of the film, the main character travels to Israel where he met Segen, a soldier that would join him in a flight to the World Health Organization.

Lo and behold, after their plane crashed, Segen and Gerry went on their way to the WHO building, which was infested by zombies. In a bid to find the information he needed, Gerry and other experts made their way to the area where pathogens were stored, but it was only Pitt’s character who was successful.

Gerry injects himself with a pathogen to camouflage himself against the zombies, leading to the success of his mission. However, the happy ending wasn’t the original conclusion to “World War Z,” Screenrant reported.

The original ending saw Gerry and Segen flown to Moscow where they were forced to serve in the military to fight the zombies. A time jump would then show him combating the monsters in winter, where he realized that they move slower in low temperatures.

He finally got in touch with his wife, who formed a relationship with a paratrooper to keep her kids safe, and Gerry, Segen, and a certain Simon traveled to reach the United States. The penultimate scene was the former UN investigator uniting with his family in his homeland.

The filming began before the script was finalized and hence a bleaker original was crafted initially. However, Pitt and Paramount officials didn’t like the scene, so they tapped Damon Lindelof to fix the mess.

There were seven weeks of reshoot and the studio shelled out millions of dollars for the 40 minutes of “World War Z.” Despite going over the film’s budget, it still managed to amass $540 million in global ticket sales.