In January 2016 Paramount announced that director Juan Antonio Bayona has left the project. David Fincher was confirmed as Bayona's replacement as director in june 2017. Fincher had previously attempted to direct for HBO a US remake of Kelly's TV show "Utopia", but this had been cancelled due to budgetary problems. Fincher said in 2017 that "I’ve been working for about a year now with Dennis Kelly on World War Z… We’re hoping to get a piece of material that’s a reason to make a movie not an excuse to make a movie."