According to The Hollywood Reporter Paramount has stopped development on a sequel to 1993’s zombie thriller World War Z.

The movie has been in various states of development for years, with the most recent version being shepherded by David Fincher (The Game, Fight Club)

Apparently the issue is related to budget–ironically enough, the same problem that almost scuttled the original movie.

This may seem like an odd decision–especially considering that despite the tumultuous development of the first movie, it performed well.

Though it’s worth mentioning that Paramount has been in financial difficulty lately, both from the loss of a Chinese financing deal and the box office failure of Star Trek Beyond, so it actually makes sense that they wouldn’t want to keep throwing money at a sequel that they couldn’t control the costs of, never mind control the profitability of (which few studios can).

Paramount isn’t Warner Bros or Disney (who reshot, re-edited, and re-color corrected a large portion of Justice League. Solo: A Star Wars Story did similar, minus the color correction) so they likely couldn’t afford significant overruns.

Then there’s the consideration that the zombie genre isn’t as strong as it once was. The Walking Dead is hitting new lows, and there’s no guarantee that the increased investment in World War Z 2 would pay off.