Troubled doesn’t begin to cover it. The journey that World War Z has made from book to script to screen has been dogged with disaster from the start. The Hollywood Reporter did a good job describing the scene back in June, but the potted version basically involves delays, rewrites, re-shoots, the departure of key crew members, and misery on set.

So with the trailer hitting today we ask if, following such monumental problems, the film has any chance of finding an audience next summer?

First things first, the book was always going to be tough source material to adapt. Written by Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War doesn’t have a simple narrative through-line, nor the kind of linear plot that a Hollywood movie demands.

Instead, it’s a sprawling account of the zombie outbreak, detailing the spread of the zombie infection through the likes of China, South Africa, Israel and the United States. And one that feels more like it should be turned into an ongoing TV series than a standalone movie.

And so screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski and latterly Matthew Michael Carnahan were charged with the task of turning what’s essentially an anecdotal historical tome into a movie for the multiplex masses.

The plot therefore now revolves around Gerald Lane, a United Nations researcher who is sent on a fact-finding mission to discover the origin of the outbreak and to figure out how to stop it.

But while the Hollywood Reporter’s source claimed that the film’s first 45 minutes were terrific, the second half was apparently problematic, with scribes Damon Lindelof and Drew Goddard asked to help re-write the finale, leading to re-shoots and the release date being pushed back from December 2012 to June 2013.

Such a process is common practice in Hollywood however, and it's not always the disaster that commentators would have you believe. The Bourne Identity underwent both re-writes and re-shoots late in proceedings and that turned out okay. Same with The Amazing Spider-Man, which grossed more than $750m at the global box office this summer.

So what of the trailer that hit today? It certainly does a good job of building tension and once the zombie apocalypse does hit, it looks epic in terms of size and scale. But fans of the book have already taken to Twitter to not only complain that the story appears to bear only a passing resemblance to the source material, but also to bemoan the fact that the undead are slow shufflers in the book but have been transformed into speedy sprinters for the movie.

The film’s visual effects artist John Nelson told EW the reason for the change: “They are like predatory animals that can’t control themselves. I worked with tigers [while shooting Gladiator], and if you watch them when a horse goes by they go batty, even if they know they can’t reach it. When Zs see humans they do same thing, they activate. They launch themselves.

"There are a lot of things in nature we’re mining as references. They move like birds or school of fish, too, in reactive formations, and it’s not because they have a higher level of [shared] thinking or communication – it’s about their nature and the fact that their instinct to infect is so basic, efficient, and overpowering. They will go through anything. If they lose both legs, they will walk on their hands. They lock in and they’re like salmon going upstream or sperm swimming to be the first to egg.”

Speedy zombies didn’t do the likes of 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake any harm. But Shaun of the Dead himself – Simon Pegg – tweeted this morning, “Zombies everywhere are spinning in their graves,” adding that he’d be prepared to give the movie the benefit of the doubt, but that “Fast zombies are not my bag.”

A bigger worry may be the copious amounts of CGI featured in the trailer. Both fast and slow zombies can be made to look scary, but can you do the same with artificial-looking computer-generated zombies? The effects may not be finished yet at this early stage, but the early evidence isn’t good, particularly in the scenes where the hordes attack.

Indeed, the idea that zombies can scale huge buildings and walls by piling on top of each other is cool, but seeing it in practice as the trailer’s climactic money shot is not, the execution disappointing thanks to yet more ropey CGI.

Another question that has dogged the production from the start is whether or not director Marc Forster can handle the film’s action sequences. Forster is better known for dramas like Finding Neverland and The Kite Runner, and his one foray into the genre – Quantum of Solace – was the most underwhelming of Daniel Craig’s Bond movies, with the action a particular disappointment.

He’s got a fine actor to carry the film in the shape of Brad Pitt; one who can handle both action and drama, but will the actor’s talent and popularity be enough to tempt audiences into theatres next June?

That remains to be seen, but whatever the case, it’s clear that studio Paramount has a lot riding on World War Z, with the film’s budget reportedly approaching the $200m mark. It was also hoped that the film would be the first part in a proposed trilogy. But Hollywood is a fickle place, so if the film doesn’t hit big come the summer, expect Worlds War Z to be both the beginning and the end of this particular brand of big-budget horror.

Chris Tilly is Entertainment Editor for IGN and really hopes World War Z works. His idle chat can be found on both Twitter and MyIGN.

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Check out a new photo and series of banners from the upcoming The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey:

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Watch the new, second TV spot for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey:

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens December 14.

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IGN was honored to spend two days on the New Zealand set of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey last May where we observed filming and chatted with the cast and filmmakers about the highly anticipated adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic fantasy novel.

At the time of our set visit, The Hobbit was still planned as a two-part adaptation. Suffice to say, the ensuing months saw the two-film adaptation stretched into a trilogy and much of the action-packed sequences that we observed filming will now happen in the second film, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. That means we're under embargo for another year before we can tell you about the cool stuff we saw being filmed. So what can we tell you about our trip to Middle-earth?

We interviewed director Peter Jackson; Matt Aitken, Visual Effects Supervisor, Weta Digital; Richard Taylor, Creative Director, Weta Workshop; Peter King, Make-up and Hair Designer and Tami Lane, Prosthetics Supervisor; Bob Buck, Additional Costume Designer; and Dan Hennah, Production Designer. Cast members interviewed included Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins), Andy Serkis (Gollum, 2nd Unit Director), Orlando Bloom (Legolas), Evangeline Lilly (Tauriel), Richard Armitage (Thorin Oakenshield), Jed Brophy (Nori), Dean O’Gorman (Fili), Mark Hadlow (Dori), Peter Hambleton (Gloin), Graham McTavish (Dwalin), Ken Stott (Balin), John Callen (Oin), Stephen Hunter (Bombur), William Kircher (Bifur), Adam Brown (Ori), and Aidan Turner (Kili).

It was truly amazing to be able to set foot on the set of The Hobbit, which is situated on the backlot of Stone Street Studios where Jackson and Co. have long operated. It really was as collegial and familial as you'd think from watching those Hobbit vlog entries. The Hobbit has consumed all of Stone Street, with every office, wall, and corner of the studio touched by something from Middle-earth.

Here's some of what Jackson and his stars had to say about bringing Bilbo Baggins' journey to cinematic life.

Gandalf Stands Alone

Lord of the Rings veteran Sir Ian McKellen found himself at the mercy of a new dual camera system this time out, one that simultaneously records the tall Gandalf and his diminutive co-stars in two separate locations: "So the 13 dwarves are over there in their set, and I'm over in my set, which is a little green screen cutout to make me look tall. With nobody else, 'cause my camera's enslaved to the other one, there isn't an operator. I can't see the people I'm talking to, so they're represented by pictures on top of poles, which light up when they're talking, and I hear them through a sound piece in my ear. I didn't feel like being back, I wanted to go away. I was very, very unhappy, miserable."

McKellen added, "I think because my reaction was so strong to it, it was very difficult and bewildering, Peter has managed to cut down the number of times we've done that since. But in the more general sense, it was the sort of feeling we had by the time we were making The Return of The King, that there had already been two films gone out, which had been much enjoyed. So we felt, which you don't often feel when you're doing a job, this is a job that the audience want me to do."

McKellen said the Hobbit films will go to greater lengths to explain why Gandalf picks Bilbo Baggins to serve as the dwarves' burglar, something Tolkien's book never quite does. "When Gandalf leaves the dwarves to get on with their job, you get to discover why he is supporting them. And that involves an overview of Middle-earth, which wizards and High Elves get involved with. So I think that will lead on very well, out of the story of Lord of The Rings, because when it's quite clear that Middle-earth is at stake. The Hobbit is an adventure story for kids, and told in the first person by someone who might read it to you before you go to bed. Lord of The Rings is about the end of the world. So the tone is clearly very, very different, and that will be reflected. It's reflected in the script, it's reflected in the casting, and it will be reflected, presumably, in the finished film. But alongside that, there's that lighter feel, or a more adventure-story feel. There will be the politics of Middle-earth going on in the background as a support."

McKellen said, "I think the script has made Gandalf a bit less bossy than he is in the novel. But he supports them on their quest, which they call it, and their desire to reclaim their land and property, with a different sort of enthusiasm than he would send the Fellowship off to retrieve the Ring. Which is why it's helpful to me that we should know what's going on elsewhere in Middle-earth, which dwarves tramping around the place, attracting the attention of old enemies and new, threatens to unbalance the ever-present sleeping dragon, the wisdom of waking him, now he's fully grown. If they're going to go off and do that, Gandalf thinks, 'I better be there.' And he's right."

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Check out the first TV spot for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey:

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens December 14.

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