Congratulations Brad Pitt!

Today, through a combination of magic and science, you’re going to be hurled bodily back through time and space into the body of one William Bradley Pitt.  This will be occurring at the moment he’s deciding whether or not he wants to take on producing Max Brooks seminal found-novel, World War Z.  You’ll be fully aware of everything Brad Pitt is thinking and feeling, but you won’t be able to control any of his actions – you’ll simply be party to what will, in that instant, be your actions.

You’ll sit, after finishing the book, and think to yourself, Well that was unfilmable.

Then you’ll throw your pen in the air and think, God, but money is nice.

A tiny voice will cry: Do you still need money that badly?

A chorus will boom in response: YES!

You’ll shrug and send an email to your agent:

I think I’d like to make a really shitty zombie movie based on this book.  Well, not based on it, really.  Using its title.  I can be a hero dad who is really strong and smart and saves his family while they’re getting ready to go on vacation and zombies attack or something.  It’ll be all like “Ahhhh!” and I’ll be all like “Pow Pow Pow!”  And then they’ll be all like “Oh noooooo!”  And I’ll be all “I’ve got a cure for stuff!”  But it’ll be like, a cure that lets me kill people.  And maybe involves a sacrifice.  But like, not a real one.  Make the wife a redhead – redheads are pretty.

Your agent, in the future, present past, will receive the email, sigh, and get on the phone with a studio head, who will promptly greenlight the project.  You, in the present-present, will awake, techno-wizard hanging over you staring you in the face, foul breath fogging your glasses.

“How did it happen?” he’ll ask.

You’ll rub your head, tears welling in your eyes, and murmur: “I think maybe Brad Pitt isn’t as smart as people think he is.”

The techno-wizard will be unsurprised.

Congratulations Brad Pitt!