Last night brought the announcement of World War Z getting a release date, and today presents us with an even more interesting development. That happens to be a plot synopsis, one that makes the Marc Forster movie sound entirely different from the Max Brooks novel that it’s based upon.

The original book took place after a war between zombies and humans, which was chronicled in the form of interviews with survivors of the conflict. We’ve always known that the movie would have to abandon the structure that the novel employed, but a new plot synopsis makes the work done by Matthew Michael Carnahan and J. Michael Straczynski sound entirely different from the source material. Read it below:

The story revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself. Mireille Enos plays Gerry’s wife Karen Lane; Andre Kertesz is his comrade in arms, Segen.

The big difference here, along with the aforementioned abandonment of the book’s form of storytelling, is the fact that this will take place around the time of the infestation, making this a zombie movie, through and through. Many fans will undoubtedly get mad at this choice, and even though I can understand some of the irritation that they feel, I don’t mind this approach. I might be sick of zombies to the point where I don’t want to see them in anything ever again, but the idea of a movie that has Brad Pitt running around the world in an attempt to prevent them from taking over sounds a little appealing, at least on a pure entertainment level.

Also in the cast are James Badge Dale, Elyes Gabel, and Matthew Fox, with Bryan Cranston in talks for a small part. Interestingly enough, both Fox and Ed Harris were first reported as being in the film, and then said to have left. However, a recent photo from the set shows him, plain as day, and the clothing he’s wearing indicates that he’s still playing the character only described as “parajumper.” Seeing him and Pitt onscreen together as zombie killers is something I never thought would happen, so I take this as good news. The film is scheduled to be released on December 21st, 2012.

Are you annoyed that the movie will probably be very different from the novel? Does this synopsis make you less interested in seeing the adaptation?

Sources: BleedingCool, BadassDigest