Summary
- Zack Snyder teases the “twisted” nature of the future Army of the Dead franchise.
- Snyder plans to continue expanding his zombie-action universe, with a sequel to Army of Thieves and an animated series called Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas.
- The first film included Easter egg-level details that set up possibilities for future movies, leaving audiences guessing about the meaning behind these hints and which ones will be paid off.
The twisted Army of the Dead 2 (and beyond) is teased by Zack Snyder. Having departed the world of DC after delivering his clamored-for cut of Justice League, Snyder in recent years has set his sights on establishing his own original cinematic universes. Soon the director will unleash Rebel Moon, a Netflix sci-fi movie that began life as a rejected Star Wars pitch. In addition, Snyder still plans to continue expanding the zombie action universe he kicked off with 2021’s Army of the Dead and its follow-up prequel Army of Thieves. Back in 2021, Snyder even revealed a title for the next installment in his zombie-action franchise: Planet of the Dead.
While Snyder is not yet ready to reveal a lot of concrete details about this Army of the Dead sequel, he did just offer up a small tease as to the “twisted” nature of the franchise’s future. Speaking exclusively to Screen Rant during a Rebel Moon set visit, Snyder talked about the advantages of getting to alternate between his two Netflix universes, even though his “nuts” zombie franchise is very different in tone to his new sci-fi venture. Check out what Snyder had to say in the space below:
Yeah, and I thought about it a lot. It’s funny because, I was trying to figure out the cadence and how we would go forward, and whether we’re going to do the Army of the Dead sequel and then come back and do another one of these [Rebel Moon] movies if it’s desired. Because Army goes completely nuts. If we were to make another Army movie other than…the Mathias [Army of Thieves] arm of Army Universe has its own thing happening, but the main trunk gets pretty twisted as it goes up. And then to have these two things, it would be nice…because you could kind of go back and forth between the two [universes].
How Twisted Could Planet Of The Dead Get?
The first installment in the Army of the Dead franchise featured loads of small details that Snyder has since confirmed were included as hints of what could transpire in future movies. One Easter egg-level detail set up the possibility that the film’s Alpha zombie Zeus was actually a bioweapon that was being shipped to Iran before escaping to terrorize Las Vegas. Another bigger and stranger hint was provided by the first film’s memorable time loop moment, in which the members of the heisting crew seem to encounter their own skeletal corpses. Theories abound as the meaning behind these hints, but it remains to be seen which ones would be paid off, and which would stay as tantalizing dead ends.
It would indeed be twisted to see Army of the Dead 2 play more with time loops, while more deeply exploring the apparent military origins of the franchise’s zombies. The fact that Snyder’s zombies are able to breed also sets up some wild possibilities, as do the first film’s oddball hints about aliens and robot zombies. Snyder clearly has loads of ideas for what he wants to do with his zombie-action universe (some of them perhaps only half-serious), as he’s also teased an Army of Thieves sequel, with the animated Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas still reportedly on-tap for 2023.
