This has been a favourite read since I first bought it in 2006. A terrific take on a worldwide zombie apocalypse told through post-apocalypse interviews with individual survivors/eye witnesses. Very different from the usual man-and-family-trying-to-survive-zombies-with-various-predictable-zombiefodder-stories-along-the-way or lone-medic-discovers-virus-that-reanimates-the-dead-and-battles-for-a-cure-before-it's-too-late novellas.
So I was really, REALLY, looking forward to the film of the book scheduled for release in December this year. I had deliberately not been googling for spoilers or teaser trailers because I didn't want my cinema experience spoiled. But following discussions in the zombie survival thread my curiosity was again aroused.
I was looking forward to the big screen interpretations of the Battle of Yonkers, the millions strong zombie swarms sweeping plains, cities, and countries, the last stand of General Raj Singh's men at the battle of Ghandi Park, the implementation of the Redeker Plan in South Africa, the armadas of survivor ships, Captain Chen and the renegade Chinese nuclear sub…
Now I find the story has been butchered, and is based around a lone UN employee traveling the world to prevent the outbreak before WW Z. Different timeline, different characters. So basically nothing like the book. At all. Other than the name of the film. Oh, and it has zombies. But apparently they're fast zombies, so even that's not like the book.
A story that had the potential to be the scale of LOTR trashed by Hollywood and turned into just another generic Z film and nothing special.
Disappointed doesn't even begin to describe it.