This is it boys, this is war

Happy news from Hollywood. Those making film treatment of World War Z will, as best as they can, maintain the unconventional structure of the book. The framing device of the book is the collection of first hand accounts of the Zombie war for a UN report. This means the story hops across the globe with essentially no character continuity. It works wonderfully, as author Max Brooks, has dozens of great ideas crammed into his skull, which he can develop for 20 or so pages before moving to the next. The script writers could have easily picked a few of the stories for an intimate zombie movie with doomed love stories, but instead they decided to try and show the global scale. Bully for them. (via SF Signal)

In an afterword, Brooks notes that he was inspired to use his approach after reading John Hackett's The Third World War. That book also tells the story of the war by moving from location to location in Europe to describe a potential war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Tom Clancy also adapted the approach and story to make the more successful, as well as better written, Red Storm Rising.