'World War Z' the Brad Pitt autobiography

The big-budget zombie flick World War Z is finally in theaters and reviews are mixed. Clearly, folks who’ve read Max Brooks’ horror novel know that the movie strays pretty far, but over at EW’s Popwatch, a new theory has emerged.

Their comparisons of lead character Gerry Lane (Pitt) and Pitt’s real life are pretty spot on. It is theorized that Pitt’s life as a high-profile movie star parallel that of Lane’s globetrotting and mysterious United Nations employee. The swarming zombies are DUH!, the fans and paparazzi. He’s endlessly trying to protect his family from them and even adopts a war orphan along the way. Whoa.

From the piece:

“The movie just doesn’t really make sense: The lead characters are constantly getting on planes to fly places, mostly because this is the kind of movie where people fly places. However, if you read between the lines, the plot of World War Z is actually very clear-cut. It is the story of Brad Pitt, famous celebrity and family man.”

It actually makes a lot of sense, even if you haven’t seen the film. There’s also a joke that “Pitt spends the movie looking like an Us Weekly paparazzi photo spread: Perfect mussed hair, five-day scruff, cargo pants.”

This film was a labor of love for Pitt who has shied away from the traditional summer blockbusters for a few years now (Troy, 2004, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, 2005), so the autobiographical slant shouldn’t surprise us. Right? It looks like the subliminal message of “being a celebrity is akin to surviving a zombie apocalypse” has “massive movie star ego” written all over it or are we reading too much into this film?

Check out the full article and let us know your thoughts.

-Larissa Mrykalo