With 28 Years Later hitting theaters, all eyes are on how it will do at the box office. After all, there’s a clear ceiling for how big zombie movies can be, financially. In the history of live-action zombie movies, only one title has cleared $100+ million, while only a handful of these features (especially when excluding Resident Evil installments) have exceeded $50+ million. And yet, thanks to titles like Night of the Living Dead, zombie features have left a tremendous mark on the horror genre.
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Still, there has been at least one zombie movie blockbuster that’s garnered big box office bucks after launching in June. Surprisingly, it’s not the title that launched the 28 Days franchise. Instead, it’s 2013’s World War Z, which rode Brad Pitt’s popularity and its acclaimed source material to massive box office figures.
How Big Was World War Z?
At this point, World War Z’s tortured production has become Hollywood legend. Brad Pitt’s big foray into blockbuster entertainment had a problematic shoot that had special difficulty nailing down a third act that felt dramatically compelling. After lengthy reshoots designed to give World War Z a cohesive ending, this blockbuster’s budget spiraled to over $200 million. All signs pointed to World War Z having immense trouble breaking even or escaping its toxic pre-release buzz when it opened in theaters on June 21, 2013.
Shockingly, though, World War Z instead turned into a tidy moneymaker. Domestically alone, the film made $202.41 million, a massive haul for any 2013 film, let alone one starring zombies. To that point, the biggest live-action zombie movie was Zombieland, with a $75.59 million domestic gross. World War Z, with its more accessible PG-13 rating and digital 3D/IMAX 3D ticket prices, left Zombieland and all other zombie titles in the dust, financially in North America. Worldwide, World War Z grossed $540 million, further amplifying how impressive its theatrical run was.
Despite Pitt’s status as a bona fide movie star, World War Z still remains his biggest star vehicle ever domestically. It was also only the third movie he ever appeared in to exceed $180 million in North America, following Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Ocean’s Eleven. World War Z wasn’t just a zombie-centric moneymaker on its own terms; it was also a way bigger-than-usual feature. But what made World War Z so much more successful than other zombie movies?
World War Z Was Much More Accessible Than Typical Zombie Films
World War Z’s PG-13 rating proved essential in ensuring it could leapfrog past other R-rated zombie films. Teenagers could come unaccompanied and see all the zombie mayhem, rather than just the folks over 17 being the primary target demo. World War Z also inhabited the action film genre, a more accessible domain than the gruesomely violent horror or horror/comedy realms that zombie films typically occupied.
More importantly, though, was that World War Z’s marketing campaign didn’t necessarily emphasize the film’s zombies, nor did it evoke traditional zombie movie imagery. The Z in World War Z’s title and interviews with the cast and crew made it clear what those swarms of people in the various posters or trailers were. However, the Zombieland or Warm Bodies trailers prominently featured the undead groaning for brains or with skin dangling from their cheeks. World War Z’s trailers and posters, meanwhile, showed more cleaned-up “grounded” zombies from a distance. Maybe Brad Pitt and his family were being attacked by zombies, maybe they were just people “gone mad”. It was a little more nebulous.
Thus, this costly title could attract folks who didn’t care for The Walking Dead or George A. Romero movies, hence its bigger-than-usual box office haul. Having Brad Pitt around (a significantly bigger star than usual for a zombie movie) certainly didn’t hurt either, nor did a prime mid-June spot that allowed World War Z to take advantage of both summer weekdays and holidays like the 4th of July weekend. While everything went wrong in World War Z’s production, everything went oh so right in its box office run. In the process, it achieved financial accomplishments that subsequent zombie films like 28 Years Later would kill to hit.
World War Z is now streaming on Paramount+.
