World War Z Sequel Is Back With Brad Pitt and Edward Berger — What's Actually Confirmed

Paramount has closed a deal with Brad Pitt to star in a World War Z sequel, and tapped Edward Berger to direct — ending years of on-and-off attempts to get a follow-up to the 2013 hit off the ground. Deadline broke the news September 18, corroborated the same day by Variety.

What’s actually confirmed

Per Deadline’s reporting, Paramount has closed deals with both Pitt and Berger. Dennis Kelly is writing the script. Pitt will produce through Plan B Entertainment alongside Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, with Berger serving as executive producer. Plot details are being kept under wraps — nothing about setting, timeline, or story has been disclosed by either studio or filmmakers.

Berger’s credits include All Quiet on the Western Front and Conclave, and he recently directed Pitt in The Riders for A24. According to Deadline, that shoot is what got this moving: sources say it went well enough that Pitt began pitching Berger on World War Z partway through production, and by the time it wrapped, Berger was on board. Paramount then closed the deal in recent weeks.

Why “again” matters here

This isn’t the first attempt at a World War Z sequel, and Deadline’s own reporting is explicit that this is a fresh deal, not old plans resurfacing. Pitt had spent years trying to get a follow-up made, including an earlier push with his longtime collaborator David Fincher attached to direct. That version fell apart when budgetary issues arose, and the project stalled. The Berger deal reported today is a separate, newly closed arrangement — not the Fincher-era plan moving forward under a new name.

Deadline traces the project’s more recent momentum to last summer, when Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg became Paramount’s Co-Chairs and made a sequel a priority, reportedly confirming that interest publicly at CinemaCon. Skydance, which helped get the original film made, is also described as supportive of a sequel through founder David Ellison.

What’s still unknown

Neither studio has announced a release date, supporting cast, or any plot information. Whether the sequel continues directly from Gerry Lane’s story in the 2013 film or restructures the concept isn’t stated in either report. Treat anything beyond the deal itself — the director, writer, producers and the fact that it’s moving forward — as unconfirmed until Paramount says more.

The original, briefly

World War Z (2013), directed by Marc Forster and based on Max Brooks’ 2006 novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, starred Pitt as Gerry Lane, a former United Nations investigator racing to contain a global zombie pandemic. It made more than $540 million worldwide, making a sequel a commercially obvious move even as it took over a decade to actually get one moving.