Last night in a screening room above a rain-soaked Times Square, Paramount Pictures unveiled a reel to show off their highest-profile releases through 2014, including footage from two films that hadn’t been seen anywhere else. And no, before you ask, neither of them were Star Trek Into Darkness– all we got from that was the same bit of director J.J. Abrams’s appearance on Conan, where he cheekily screened three frames from the upcoming sci-fi sequel.
Saved for the very end of the presentation was the first trailer for World War Z, the massive zombie apocalypse movie that’s been mired in release date shifts, reshoots, and constant rumors of friction behind the scenes. Like Pain & Gain this footage could easily be the first trailer, but it also elides plot to focus on juicy bits of action, in this case shots of zombie hordes cascading over city traffic or fortified walls, and Brad Pitt’s character being separated from his family (including The Killing star Meirelle Enos) to help fight the zombie plague. The footage opened with a tense scene of Pitt’s family trapped in traffic while an arriving zombie army brings chaos, and featured bits of scenes that gave a sense to the film’s scale– an official-looking clock counting down the names of the dead, and official-looking people in a situation room reporting how other countries are doing as poorly as America at fighting back the invasion.
Read more. If you follow the link; I’ve added the full description of the trailer at the Forum but as it contains spoilers I won’t post it directly here.