The Biggest Zombie Movie of All Time Officially Confirms a Sequel Is Happening After 13 Years

The biggest blockbuster zombie movie of all time is officially getting a sequel after making fans wait 13 years to hear the good news. In that time, we’ve kind of come to the end of the zombie-horror resurgence that started in the late 2000s and surged in the 2010s (with franchises like The Walking Dead). However, there have been embers of possibility still burning within the sub-genre, and this has been one of the brightest of them all.

World War Z was released in 2013, but it is only now, at CinemaCon 2026, that Paramount is officially confirming that a new World War Z movie is in the works. No official details have been given yet, including the format of the project (sequel, prequel, or spinoff); the same goes for whether or not Brad Pitt, director Marc Forster, or any of the other original creative team from the first film will be invovled with the new project.

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Why It Took So Long For A World War Z Sequel

The World War Z movie was a very big departure from the Max Brooks novel that inspired it. The book was presented as a chronicle of, and a survival guide to, a fictional zombie apocalypse, told through various reports, journal entries, and other accounts that had been collected together as short stories. The film starred Brad Pitt as a U.N. Investigator on a fact-finding quest to solve the zombie apocalypse; it took zombie survival-horror to a whole new blockbuster scale, a globe-trotting mystery draped in horror movie staples, punctuated by a few action-blockbuster set pieces. It earned $540 million at the worldwide box office, making it the highest-grossing zombie movie of all time.

And yet, World War Z didn’t get the obvious sequel many thought it should. The film infamously went through some massive production troubles, including a year-long release delay, after production dragged from the summer of 2011 to the summer of 2012. Drew Goddard (Prey, Predator: Badlands) and Damon Lindelof (HBO’s Watchmen, Lost) were both brought in to rewrite the film’s third act, which required extensive reshoots to make it work, after the budget spikes killed the big, massive action climax planned by writers Matthew Michael Carnahan and J. Michael Straczynski. A scaled-down finale got the film in the can, but Paramount ended up investing an estimated range of $200 – $300 million in making, reshooting, and marketing the film, making that $540 million box office much less of a “win,” despite the record it achieved. Hence why a sequel wasn’t ever greenlit – despite director J.A. Bayona (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) and David Fincher (Fight Club) both being attached to versions of a World War Z sequel in the mid-to-late 2010s.

As stated, there’s no indication of what the next film would be, or what kind of scope Paramount wants for it. But we’ll keep you updated.

No release date for the new World War Z film has been set. Discuss what you want to see with us over on the ComicBook Forum!