I heard the Cardiff thing was a last-minute change

The original ending to the book, as I believe it, was something completely different, but I don't know what the details were. The movie was going to do the same thing, but changed at the last minute to a WHO research facility outside of my HOME CITY of Cardiff, Wales.

I am quite flattered that the city of my origin is being mentioned so prominently in a major Hollywood blockbuster about zombies starring Brad Pitt, but I have to point out that Cardiff does not have mountains like that anywhere near it at the time of the plane crash, and I also don't think that small Welsh towns like the one shown exist anywhere near it neither. I think the filmmakers simply didn't bother to research the geography of the area, just used a place name.

It's the price I pay for having most of the world ignore my home city, as even my own fellow tourists on a trip to America were fed up of me comparing Cardiff to the places we visited.

I don't get the hate: Cardiff, Wales IS a world capital, after all.