Chinese Censors Reject Brad Pitt's 'World War Z'

Cynical industry watchers have already moved on from the disappointing box office returns for After Earth to the summer’s next potential dud–World War Z.

The Brad Pitt zombie movie has been plagued by costly reshoots and other production woes, all of which sent the film’s budget into the $200 million range.

Now, the film may not screen in China, robbing the film’s studio of the world’s second biggest market. TheWrap.com reports Chinese film censors don’t approve of the version of the movie submitted to them, meaning without revisions the zombie epic won’t be seen in the populous country.

Hope still remains that a tweaked version will be Chinese approval.

It may yet be approved; Paramount can still resubmit the film, which opens in the United States on June 21, and hope censors change their minds.

The irony is that the film, based on the book of the same name by author Max Brooks, abandoned the source material’s plot point that the zombie outbreak started in China.

World War Z casts Pitt as a UN employee scrambling to find a cure for a zombie outrbreak.