It was a mighty battle fought between heroic warriors and massive armies. Oh, all right – it was between lawyers and big entourages. But the struggle to the rights for a new zombie horror book has been raging, and now Brad Pitt is the winner. We can’t confirm whether the arrival of daughter Shiloh with her magical powers of deal making already in place helped (how many other kids do you know sold their baby pictures for $4 million?), but Pitt has nabbed the rights to Max Brooks’ book, World War Z.
Leonardo Di Caprio’s Appian Way production company was also after the rights, but Pitt’s Plan B won the deal yesterday. Brooks’ novel follows on the heels of his comedy Zombie Survival Guide, but this tome is a straight work of fiction, which chronicles the events 10 years after global zombie epidemic and told from several viewpoints. If Pitt and co get the film version going swiftly enough, looks like Will Smith’s similarly zombie-themed I Am Legend might have a little competition.