The Walking Dead: Dave Bautista was told he was too big to play a zombie

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

When it comes to zombies, Dave Bautista is a big fan, but despite his enthusiasm for the genre and his star status after starring in movies such as Guardians of the Galaxy, Blade Runner 2049, and Spectre, Bautista was never able to book an appearance on the biggest zombie TV show of all-time — The Walking Dead.

While speaking with Empire, Dave Bautista said, "I’m a zombie fan. I tried to get on Walking Dead for years. I said I would come and play a zombie for free, but they said, 'You’re too big!'" Standing at 6'4" and over 260lbs, Dave Bautista is certainly bigger than the average zombie seen on The Walking Dead, but I'm sure he would have had a blast playing something along the same lines as the bloated zombie found in the well in the second season of the series. Although Bautista may not have been able to appear in The Walking Dead, he will soon be able to realize his zombie dreams as he stars in Army of the Dead, Zack Snyder's upcoming zombie/heist film for Netflix, and Empire has a new image from the film which you can check out below.

Despite his love of zombies, Dave Bautista said that "there had to be something special about a zombie film for me to sign up," and what sets Army of the Dead apart is the heist aspect, although Bautista added that "there a whole bunch of different layers to this film." Army of the Dead is "set amid a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, during which a man assembles a group of mercenaries to take the ultimate gamble, venturing into the quarantined zone to pull off the greatest heist ever attempted."

Netflix was so pumped about Army of the Dead that they also got the ball rolling on a prequel film (which recently wrapped) as well as an anime series. Director and co-writer Zack Snyder has previously said that the film 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 percent. 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." Army of the Dead will debut on Netflix later this year.