Two things that Zack Snyder very clearly loves are genre films and expansive mythologies. Indeed, at this stage of his career, it seems pretty unlikely that you’ll find him directing a low budget drama or a straightforward crime thriller, with his entire filmography characterized by flashy visuals and fantastical narratives.
Snyder’s upcoming Netflix original Army of the Dead marks his second foray into zombie territory, while the rest of his output is comprised of five comic book adaptations, animated family film Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, which was based on a book series, and psychological fantasy blockbuster Sucker Punch. In fact, Army of the Dead is just his second ever movie based on an original concept after the latter, and his first in a decade.
The 54 year-old is known for crafting intricate and complex universes around his films, and his latest effort looks to be no different. A heist thriller that sees a gang of thieves attempting to rob a Las Vegas casino in the middle of a zombie outbreak is the sort of high concept pitch that’s brilliant in its simplicity, but as you can see below, a new description indicates that things might not be so simple.
“Army of the Dead‘s setup is that a plague has been released from Nevada’s secretive Area 51 military base. The U.S. government has managed to contain the outbreak by building a wall around an overrun Sin City. But there’s still all that cash in zombie-infested casinos, if only somebody is brave (or dumb) enough to try to go and get it.”
That certainly makes it sound as though the government will be responsible for the plague of undead that have overrun Sin City, and while nobody knows for sure what goes on within the walls of Area 51, popular culture almost always associates the mysterious facility with the extraterrestrial.
An alien zombie action movie seems like exactly the sort of thing that would get Zack Snyder excited, and while it sounds insane, it could also result in Army of the Dead being the sort of pulpy B-level blockbuster on an A-list budget that audiences around the world will get a real kick out of.