Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead must be one of the only movies in history that’s already had a prequel green lit, scripted, shot and completed before it’s even been released. That’s a bizarre and yet fascinating set of circumstances, one that makes it abundantly clear that Netflix have envisioned the property as a sprawling multimedia franchise.
The concept of a team of expert thieves staging a heist on a Las Vegas casino in the midst of a zombie outbreak is an undeniably cool one, but Army of the Dead had been lingering around Hollywood for a dozen years before the architect of the DCEU took it to the world’s biggest streaming service. The Thing remake director and enemy of autocorrect Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. was attached to helm the movie as far back as 2008, while Snyder’s regular home studio Warner Bros. also passed on the project before Netflix stepped in.
John Wick: Chapter 3 writer Shay Hatten and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword‘s Joby Harold collaborated with Snyder on the script, which is an interesting trio to say the least. And while Army of the Dead still doesn’t have an official release date yet, it’ll be arriving on Netflix by the end of the year.
In fact, in a recent interview to promote its arrival, the filmmaker teased what he’s got in store for us and promised that there’s going to be “pure zombie” mayhem” for fans to sink their teeth into.
“It is a full-blown, balls-to-the-wall zombie heist movie, so it’s genre-on-genre in a great way. So you expect pure zombie mayhem, and you get that, 100%. But also you get these really amazing characters on a fantastic journey. It’s going to surprise people that there’s a lot of warmth and real emotion with these great characters.”
The zombie genre has certainly been kind to Snyder after he made his feature debut on 2004’s Dawn of the Dead remake, and the premise of Army of the Dead alone promises some solid blood-splattered entertainment. But given that zombie films have also been done to death at this point, it’ll be interesting to see if the director is able to make his entry into the field stand out enough to draw in more general audiences.