IT'S not a typical day – lunch with some zombies, meet Brad Pitt, then watch hundreds of people run screaming through George Square – but it's the kind of day the writer Max Brooks has been having lately as he watches the movie version of his novel World War Z take shape in Glasgow.
Brooks, the son of comic director Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft, has been in the city this week to see the filming and has been taken aback by the excitement surrounding the shoot.
“I grew up in Hollywood and I’ve never seen a city – any city -– be this enthusiastic about a movie,” Brooks, 39, told The Herald yesterday.
“It’s probably the perfect storm – zombies have never been more popular, I don’t think Glasgow gets a lot of film production so it’s new and exciting and different. And, of course, it’s Brad Pitt.”
Brooks met the star on the set of the movie on Wednesday after watching him film a scene in which he pulls his family from a crashed car. The action was filmed in the streets around George Square which have been redressed to look like Philadelphia.
Brooks revealed more buildings will be added in by computer later to further enhance the illusion.
He said: “I got a chance to look at some digital renderings of how they are going to put in skyscrapers and bridges and things like that and it’s Philadelphia. It’s unbelievable. These pictures could have been shot in Philadelphia that morning.”
Brooks said he was delighted with the choice of Pitt as the star. “Look at the kind of movies that Brad does – he is very into understanding what makes the world tick and that’s kind of what World War Z is about. Take out the zombies and it’s really just a disaster story.”
Brooks, who will be signing books for his fans today at Waterstone’s on Sauchiehall Street and at Forbidden Planet, said he believed there had been a huge revival of interest in zombies because of the world’s difficult political landscape.
“It’s the time we’re living in, times of great anxiety. After 9/11, things went to hell again and the thing about zombies is they give us the chance to explore the notion of the apocalypse – but it’s safe,” he said.
Of course, what we hadn’t seen until yesterday were any of these zombies on the set in Glasgow, but Brooks has encountered them close-up.
He said: “I saw them yesterday. I had lunch with them. But I haven’t seen them in the movie.”
Brooks has not seen the script and says he doesn’t want to. In fact, his thoughts are already on his next project, which is a series of comic books also with a zombie theme.
“It’s a zombie tale told through the eyes of a vampire – what does it mean to be a vampire, living off the herd of humanity when the herd is threatened with extinction?”
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