Here’s What ‘World War Z’ Really Looks Like Without Visual Effects

In 2013, the zombie action film World War Z was released starring Brad Pitt. The movie, which was based on a 2006 novel of the same name, brought moviegoers out to the theaters in droves. It was instantly deemed a commercial success, and it didn’t take long for it to be crowned the highest-grossing zombie film of all time. What makes this movie so captivating is the realistic visual effects created by computer graphics artists. This talented group of people worked around the clock to pull off one of the most believable apocalyptic films we’ve ever seen.

Now that the sequel has been delayed, we thought we’d take a look at what the original film looks like without all the snazzy the visual effects. Prepared to be amazed.

1. The Agents

There are hundreds of thousands of zombies in the film. They swarm the streets and climb on top of each other to build human towers. Nothing can stop them – not a bus, a plane, nor a helicopter. While watching the film, you probably wondered how they were able to get so many extras for many of these shots. But the truth is, most of the zombies are actually agents – digital bots that were created by visual effects artists. Up to 8,500 of these agents were used per scene, and over 24 different body types were digitally created using various textures to give each bot its own unique appearance.