After a successful opening weekend at the box office, Paramount Pictures has announced plans to move forward with a sequel to World War Z. The zombie thriller starring Brad Pitt took in an impressive $66 million last weekend, after many box office analysts had predicted the movie would open in the $40 million range.

The studio has not announced whether director Marc Forster will return for the follow-up, but star Brad Pitt will likely return as U.N. employee Gerry Lane, who tries to track down the origins of a worldwide plague in World War Z. The actor revealed last week that he thinks there are plenty more stories from Max Brooks' original novel to use for a sequel. Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, Fana Mokoena and David Morse co-starred, but their return for the follow-up is also unknown.

Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore praised Brad Pitt's efforts as both the star and producer through his Plan B company, who worked closely with director Marc Forster and Paramount Film Group President Adam Goodman when the studio addressed problems with the movie.

"He stayed and worked when he could have gone off and shot another movie."

A number of writers were credited with working on the original World War Z script, such as J. Michael Straczynski, Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof. It isn't known if any of these writers will be back for the follow-up, or if the studio will seek out different scribes.

In related news, a series of concept art illustrations have been released, which are included in the companion book World War Z : The Art of the Film. take a look at these images below, which show off some of the early zombie designs.

World War Z Concept Arr Image 5