Major Brad Pitt Movie Might Finally Get a Sequel After $540 Million Box Office in 2013

Paramount-Skydance CEO David Ellison is making his priorities known.

At a meeting last Wednesday at Paramount’s famous Melrose Lot in Hollywood, Ellison discussed his plans for Paramount and name-dropped various franchises he’s focused on bringing to the big screen.

The first, Top Gun, is obvious. Top Gun: Maverick pulled in a massive $1.5 billion at the box office in 2022, so a sequel being the studio’s focus is unsurprising. The next couple mentions were also not much of a shock, with big names like G.I. Joe, Terminator, Transformers, and Star Trek—adding to a recent report that Star Trek is the studio’s current top priority. But the real surprise was Ellison’s interest in making a sequel to a 2013 Brad Pitt-led horror film.

When running through Paramount’s biggest names, he surprised media attendees by listing World War Z as a film the studio is planning on making a sequel to.

Action horror film World War Z, based on a book of the same name by Max Brooks, became the highest-grossing zombie film ever made when it released over a decade ago, notching over half a billion dollars at the box office with a final run of $540 million.

In the film, Pitt stars as United Nations investigator Gerry Lane, who is caught up in a worldwide zombie outbreak and must embark on a globe-trotting expedition to hunt for a cure and save his family.

At one point before the pandemic, Paramount had planned for David Fincher (Se7en) to reunite with Pitt on a sequel to the film. However, ballooning budgets and schedule conflicts meant the film never made it off the ground. It remains to be seen if Fincher, Pitt, or any other talent will return for Paramount’s latest crack at a sequel.