Zombies are Important for World War Z Author, Max Brooks

World War Z author Max Brooks was genuinely surprised that he liked the blockbuster film adaptation of his 2006 novel. The last we heard from him, he wasn’t too impressed with the trailer.

“I was expecting to hate, it and I wanted to hate it because it was so different from my book, and yet the fact that it was so different from my book made it easier to watch because I didn’t watch my characters and my story get mangled,” Brooks says. “So I was just watching somebody else’s zombie movie, which was fun and intense.”

Many writers dread adaptations despite the attention and additional earnings that may come. “They watch their characters do things they would never do and say things they would never say,” Brooks says. “It’s infuriating. I never had a ‘Gerry Lane-wouldn’t-say-that moment because I didn’t invent Gerry Lane (the film’s main character played by Brad Pitt). In fact, the only character they kept from my book, Jurgen Warmbrunn, the Israeli intelligence analyst, he was actually pretty spot on.”

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