World War Z Teaser PosterStarring Brad Pitt in the lead, World War Z is being touted as the most expensive zombie film in Hollywood history, and after the epic first trailer landed last night, it’s promising to be one of the biggest and best films of next year.

Based on the original novel by Max Brooks, we heard back in June that Damon Lindelof (Prometheus) had been hired to re-write the third act ahead of seven weeks of re-shoots. The job ultimately fell to the great Drew Goddard (Cloverfield), and EW are reporting that part of that re-write involved setting the film up as a possible trilogy in the years to come. (Interestingly, they credit Lindelof for the rewrite, but he didn’t have time, and it was his Lost partner, Goddard, who penned it in his place.)

“Pitt plays Gerald Lane, a United Nations researcher watching civilization teeter on collapse in the face of a rapacious army of rasping death. How can the relentless hordes be stopped? To answer that question, Lane accepts a mission that pulls him away from his family and sends him on a global search for the plague’s dark origins.”

And according to the report, that search is what might well span across three films, if World War Z is a success for Paramount next summer.

The film was originally set to be released in December this year, but production has been a little bit rocky since the summer of last year, ultimately culminating in the re-shoots this year.

According to insiders, the extra cost of the reshoots is well worth what they bring to the table, and with a budget teetering towards $200m., it will no doubt have to be a very big success for the studio if we’re to get two more instalments.

Starring alongside Pitt will be Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale, Lucy Aharish, Matthew Fox, Bryan Cranston, and David Morse, making for a rather brilliant cast.

Marc Forster (Stranger than Fiction, Machine Gun Preacher) is at the helm, directing from a script by Matthew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom), with Goddard hired to rewrite the last act.

World War Z will be hitting cinemas in the UK and US on 21st June, 2013, and if the first trailer is anything to go by, it will be hitting hard. Here’s to hoping that the film lives up to expectations, and that Goddard’s final act will be worthy of turning the film into a fully-fledged, three-film franchise.