World War Z was just one of those success stories. Stranded in that middle ground between critical failure and acclaim, but well and truly prominent in box offices around the globe - it went on to collect $540m worldwide. Steven Knight, according to Variety, has been hired to write the most inevitable of sequels. 

World War Z

Knight’s writing credits include Dirty Pretty Things, Eastern Promises and Jason Statham’s Hummingbird, which all bode well for an action zombie thriller. The sequel already has a director: Juan Antonio Bayona who was behind the camera for The Orphanage and The Impossible. Pitt may have had some sway in this as it comes weeks after it was announced that he was in early talks to star in an untitled World War II romantic thriller, also written by Knight. 

Of course, plot details are unknown as yet, but it’s widely assumed that the movie will carry on from Marc Foster’s effort, which – and spoilers if you haven’t seen the movie – saw Pitt inject himself with a potentially deadly virus to prove that the undead zombies didn’t ravage the flesh of the ill. 

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This is probably Pitt’s best chance at a franchise, given that he’s pretty much achieved everything else in his acting career. The audience is already there, that’s something the huge box office numbers dictated weeks after the original’s release, so it’s just up to Knight, Bayona and Pitt to make sure the sequel has enough explosions, zombies and twists in it to keep people buying tickets. 

Pitt is also producing, alongside Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, and although we haven’t got a secure release date, we expect you’ll see it sometime in winter 2016.