'World War Z' (SPOILERS): Brad Pitt's Movie Saved by Damon Lindelof and Drew Goddard, How 'Lost' and "Cabin in the Woods' Writers Changed Ending

By Jon Niles, Mstarz reporter | Jun 20, 2013 02:00 PM EDT

World War Z finally hits theaters tomorrow June 21 after a long battle with re-writes and distribution. Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt both stars in and produced the apocalyptic thriller, and it was not an easy task. Talk about the film being over budget, executives being fired and Pitt ceasing communication with director Marc Foster were just some of the crazy speed bumps that this film faced. Another huge part of the movie (based on the 2006 Max Brroks novel of the same name) was the script. "Lost" creator Damon Lindelof was brought in to consult and then ultimately fix the film's ending. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, the 40-year-old writer discussed how he and co-writer Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods) altered the film's troubled spots.

According to Lindelof, Pitt was very concerned with the film and, being a fan of the book, wanted to get it right. "He took me through how excited he was when he read the book, what was exciting for him, the geopolitical aspect of it," Lindelof said of Pitt. "My sense of it was he was taking responsibility."

According to Lindelof, Pitt explained, "when we started working on the script, a lot of that stuff had to fall away for the story to come together. We started shooting the thing before we locked down how it was going to end up, and it didn't turn out the way we wanted it to."

After his first meeting with Pitt, Lindelof sat through a 72-minute edit of what had been completed. He then took over the rewriting of the script.

The film was supposed to end with a large-scale zombie battle in Russia, but it already had one of those earlier in the film located in Israel. So according to Lindelof, "everything changes after Brad leaves Israel."

So Goddard and Lindelof wrote everything that happens after Pitt leaving Israel.

Read more of the World War Z feature in Vanity Fair RIGHT HERE!

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