'World War Z' sequel 'starting with a clean slate'

With Brad Pitt's production company backing, "The Impossible" director on board, and the writer from "Locke" providing the screenplay, a sequel to 2013 zombie outbreak film "World War Z" is on the way.

Though Brad Pitt vehicle "World War Z" was based on an earlier Max Brooks novel, it looks like director Juan Antonion Bayona and writer Steven Knight are being given a little more free rein for the $540m blockbuster's follow-up.

Bayona, who helmed a Guillermo del Toro-produced "The Orphanage" before steering Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor in tsunami survival film "The Impossible," is teaming up with Knight, who mentioned the project in conversation with IndieWire.

"I thought, 'why not? What fun.' It's not quite like the other, we're starting with clean slate," was the quote. "When [Plan B have] signed off, we're on."

The "clean slate" notion, buried within a larger profile piece on Knight's process, led the UK's Empire Magazine to speculate on what that could mean for a sequel or emergent franchise.

It could refer to the creative control afforded to Knight, even to the point of Brad Pitt remaining off-camera, or mean that unused portions of Brooks' original book are now seen as leaping-off points for the sequel.

And if multiple sequels are in the cards, "World War Z" might even be the start of an anthology series, "with each potential instalment a smaller piece of a bigger puzzle," wrote the site.