Paramount's plans to return to the "World War Z" franchise may have been related not to the studio's internal decisions, but to the success of the cooperative shooter from Saber Interactive.
In August, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Paramount intends to focus on three key franchises when planning future films: "Top Gun 3", "Star Trek" and "World War Z".
The developers of the cooperative zombie shooter World War Z believe that their game may have influenced the plans to bring the franchise back to the big screen.
In an interview with IGN at Gamescom 2025, Saber Interactive's Head of Development Tim Willits said that more than 30 million people have played World War Z. And although there were no official ties with the film studio, Willits is confident that it was the success of the game that prompted Paramount to reconsider its plans.
"They didn't tell me that. But when I saw the news that Paramount was thinking about 'World War Z' again, I thought, 'Well, it's definitely because of us,'" Willits said. - "30 million players! That's crazy."
World War Z from Saber Interactive was released in 2019 and was a free adaptation of the 2006 novel of the same name. The game received wide recognition thanks to the Swarm Engine technology, which allowed visualizing massive hordes of zombies.
Later, the same technology was used in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 to create a swarm of tyranids, and is now being used in the studio's next project, John Carpenter's Toxic Commando, which is expected to be released in 2026.
The film "World War Z" with Brad Pitt was released in 2013, grossed more than $540 million worldwide and gained a reputation as a successful but "problematic" blockbuster. The sequel was announced shortly after the release, but the project was repeatedly postponed.
At one point, director David Fincher was in charge of it, but in 2019 Paramount finally shut down preparations for filming. Fincher later admitted that the concept of the sequel largely echoed the themes that were later implemented in the HBO series "The Last of Us."
Willits also hinted that the studio has not finished with the World War Z franchise - in the future, he said, there will be something to tell, but it is too early to talk about it yet.
It is also not yet known what exactly Paramount has conceived and in what format the studio plans to return to "World War Z".
