Zack Snyder may be absent from this year’s San Diego Comic Con but the filmmaker’s fans have been out in force nonetheless in an attempt to pressure Warner Bros. into finally releasing Snyder’s original vision for the ill-fated Justice League, with #ReleaseTheSnyderCut billboards and posters being spotted all over the convention area.
With the recent resurgence surrounding the ‘Snyder Cut’ of DC and Warner Bros.’ superhero team-up, you could almost be forgiven for forgetting that the director has a new project in the works, in what marks his first time stepping behind the camera since a family tragedy forced him to step away from the DC Extended Universe.
That movie is Army of the Dead, a $90 million Netflix blockbuster that sees Snyder returning to the zombie genre for the first time since his breakthrough feature, 2004’s Dawn of the Dead remake. Billed as an action-orientated heist movie that just happens to take place during a zombie outbreak, Snyder posted the first official image from the movie online today, and you can check it out down below:
Army of the Dead definitely sounds like a fresh and exciting new spin on a tired genre, and star Dave Bautista was effusive in his praise for Zack Snyder, especially when the director decided to increase his character’s role to that of the lead:
“When he got a hold of Army of the Dead, he actually wrote a smaller part for me in there. As he was gearing up for casting, he started thining about who his lead would be, and he told me this personally, ‘One day, it just clicked: God, Dave is not that part; Dave is my lead.’ So, he called me and asked me if I would do it; I said, ‘Hell yeah. I’d be happy to do it.’ I really just want to work with Zack.”
Netflix is known to give their directors plenty of freedom when it comes to bringing their vision to life, something Snyder clearly didn’t enjoy within the DCEU. However, with Zack also acting as co-writer, co-producer and cinematographer on the project, it remains to be seen if the notoriously style-over-substance director can rein in his impulses. Also starring Ella Purnell, Theo Rossi, Garrett Dillahunt and Hiroyuki Sanada, Army of the Dead is set to hit Netflix next year.
