Brad Pitt to star in World War Z

Well, it didn't take long for our first bit of news to come out of Comic Con. On the floor during Preview Night last night, MTV got a chance to speak with World War Z creator Max Brooks who said that the film version of his apocalyptic zombie war novel is not only moving forward with Plan B Entertainment, but Plan B's very own, Mr. Brad Pitt, is currently attached to star. Paramount, who will distribute the film, is eying a summer 2012 release date.

World War Z has been in "development hell," which is film industry (or is it just blogging) lingo for films that keep getting talked about but never get made. Pitt was even at one point rumored to star (that's what happens when your production company buys the rights) but Brooks' confirmation makes it all official. 

An initial script was written by J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5, but was later redone by Matthew Michael Carnahan (State of Play, Lions for Lambs). Marc Forster (Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace) is still attached to direct. So it appears all the pieces are in place to get this thing on track for filming sometime next year.

Pitt's involvement speaks loudly about this material, which I've only heard good things about. The book is the follow up to Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide, only instead of being a traditional narrative, it is a series of first-person anecdotes. Either way, you just don't get marquee names like that for zombie films these days, so this should be something zombie fans and general film fans should be able to get behind in what is shaping up to be an excellent summer with "Star Trek 2" the Spider-Man reboot and "Batman 3."

MTV caught up with Brooks at the booth for Avatar Press, the comics production company, where he will be signing books all weekend.