A lot of reviews for Army of the Dead have praised Tig Notaro’s sardonic helicopter pilot Marianne Peters as one of the movie’s highlights, but there are no doubt an awful lot of Netflix subscribers that won’t have any idea she was cast eight months after production wrapped and was forced to shoot all of her scenes by herself against a green screen before being composited into the final cut.
It was an expensive process, to be sure, and producer Deborah Snyder estimates that it cost almost as much to CGI Notaro into Army of the Dead as it did to make prequel Army of Thieves in its entirety, but it’s certainly impressive work from the post-production team. A lot of Notaro’s dialogue is just simple close-ups of the actress talking, so there aren’t any seams to join, but there are a handful of background shots where she’s walking, talking and interacting with the rest of the ensemble despite never having actually met any of them in real life.
Notaro replaced Chris D’Elia after the comedian was subjected to multiple sexual misconduct allegations and Snyder decided to get rid of him altogether rather than trimming down his scenes, and as as you can see from the reactions below, fans are more than happy at how things turned out in the end.
https://twitter.com/britldn/status/1396045915035742215
Tig Notaro chomping on a variety of Black & Mild filter tips, something I never knew I needed but is like a cool balm on my soul pic.twitter.com/4GMeVnIX8I
— Netflix Tudum (@NetflixTudum) May 22, 2021
I can't get over how damn cool Tig Notaro looks in that new flick.
— Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 (@cmclymer) May 22, 2021
https://twitter.com/sudiptoslg95/status/1396011043642433539
Tig Notaro owns so hard in "ARMY OF THE DEAD" she should be getting wall-to-wall action offers. Give her a franchise, where she can blast away 1000 dudes, blow up the final boss and walk off with the girl like it's nothin'. She's a born star – Joan of Arc via Jerry Bruckheimer https://t.co/8yDAIzORax
— Bob Chipman 😁 bobchipman.bsky.social (@the_moviebob) May 22, 2021
https://twitter.com/mustafafrosty/status/1395859982000738307
Zack Snyder spent couple of millions to replace D'Elia with Tig Notaro and still made it under the budget. Type of things he can do when you just give him space and time do it the way he wants to do it. #ArmyOfTheDead
— Partizan 2.0 (@2Partizan) May 21, 2021
I'm still amazed on how good they handled and digitally placed Tig Notaro's character on #ArmyOfTheDead considering how #ZackSnyder filmed all her scenes on a green screen and she never even filmed with the cast. Never even noticed. pic.twitter.com/mWnAtzTN5O
— Sweeny (@StarlordSweeny) May 21, 2021
https://twitter.com/AllThingsSnyder/status/1395693277748334597
I'm glad we're talking about how well integrated Tig Notaro was into #ArmyOfTheDead . How they managed to pull that off so well is a great compliment to an already great movie imo and Tig turned in a wonderful performance! pic.twitter.com/ErpsjbuG0j
— darragh (@darragh_sc) May 22, 2021
https://twitter.com/HooiWanV/status/1396167907307106304
After watching Army of the Dead, I'm having a hard time figuring out why Zach Synder didn't cast Tig Notaro in the first place.
— Sadot The Gamer (@sadotthegamer) May 22, 2021
It can’t have been easy for either Snyder, Notaro or the Army of the Dead crew to figure out a way to make it work, but those who haven’t been following the behind the scenes tumult that plagued the apocalyptic actioner may be none the wiser that the wisecracking pilot never even set foot on set or interacted with any of her co-stars.