Brad Pitt's huge hit horror, explained.
Although the action horror subgenre has not been blessed with too many big hits as the decades have passed, Brad Pitt’s entry into the genre from 2013 is currently dominating HBO Max’s worldwide charts for good reason.
Action and horror are uneasy bedfellows, to say the least. For a brief period in the early 2000s, before Hostel and Saw started a trend of boundary-pushing gory horrors and The Ring and The Grudge popularized remakes of Japanese horror hits, the action horror subgenre was a multiplex staple. Kick-started by the popularity of The Mummy movies in 1999 and 2001, the action horror trend continued with 2001’s Thirteen Ghosts, 2002’s Ghosts of Mars, 2003’s Underworld, and 2005’s Doom.
Although controversial director Uwe Boll’s video game adaptations House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark received notably terrible reviews, the subgenre as a whole was never popular with critics. As the 2000s continued, 2009’s Daybreakers and 2007’s canon-breaking Alien franchise installment Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem ensured that the genre was still largely critically derided.
However, 2013 brought the arrival of what remains the biggest act horror movie ever made, and arguably one of the better titles in the subgenre’s ignominious history. Based on the novel of the same name by author Max Brooks, Stranger Than Fiction director Marc Forster’s World War Z was a zombie epic starring Brad Pitt as the retired UN investigator Gerry Lane.
Tasked with solving a global zombie pandemic, Gerry is sent on a globe-trotting adventure where he races against time to find a cure. World War Z Has Aged Well Since Its 2013 Release An infamously expansive effort, Pitt’s monster movie cost a whopping $190–250 million to produce.
However, World War Z more than made back that investment, with a global box office take of $540 million. The Brooks adaptation didn’t fare quite so well with critics, who called its horror toothless and its runtime overlong, but the broad consensus among reviewers was that the movie was still a fun romp and a perfectly serviceable blend of horror and disaster movie tropes.
While this may not sound like high praise, the fact that World War Z is currently a global hit on HBO Max proves that the movie’s popularity has endured for over a decade since its original release. World War Z can't be viewed on HBO Max in the US, but is available on Prime.
While 2026 is home to two of the most financially successful horror movies ever made, the modern blockbuster slate features few big-budget action horror movies like World War Z. High-profile flops like Tom Cruise’s failed reboot of The Mummy franchise proved that action horror was not necessarily a viable box office mainstay, as the sub genre’s poor critical reception seemed to finally catch up with it by the mid 2010s. Since then, big-budget blends of horror and action like World War Z have been an increasingly rare sight in theaters.
World War Z Ended A Box Office Trend That said, this may change soon. Not only does the outsized popularity of indie horror hits like Obsession and Backrooms mean that studios will be eager to green light any form of horror movie going forward, but action horror movies like World War Z, more specifically, are overdue for a comeback. 2026’s Evil Dead Burn is the franchise’s most action-forward effort ever, while the year’s upcoming Resident Evil reboot will attempt to bring back action horror’s biggest franchise.
While the original Resident Evil movies have their fans, the series was never able to win over critics. Fortunately, 2026’s Resident Evil reboot tapped Weapons/ Barbarian director Zach Cregger to revitalize the struggling franchise, meaning it might finally produce a movie that convinces critics of its potential.
This, in turn, may well mark the biggest action horror hit since 2013’s World War Z. 26 8.0/10 6/10 World War Z 10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Like Follow Followed PG-13 Action Horror Science Fiction Thriller Release Date June 21, 2013 Runtime 116 minutes Director Marc Forster Writers Damon Lindelof, Drew Goddard, Matthew Michael Carnahan, J. Michael Straczynski, Max Brooks Producers Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Ian Bryce, Jeremy Kleiner Cast See All Franchise World War Z Powered by Expand Collapse
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