Dave Bautista to lead Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Dave Bautista (pictured above in BLADE RUNNER 2049) may have had a rough time fighting HHH at yesterday's WrestleMania, but he can still be trusted to do things like guard the galaxy and battle zombies for us. Bautista has signed on to star in DAWN OF THE DEAD remake director Zack Snyder's return to the zombie sub-genre, ARMY OF THE DEAD.

Written by Snyder and Shay Hatten, ARMY OF THE DEAD is an adventure film that 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. 

The project is set up at Netflix, with Ori Marmur and Andrew Norman overseeing it for the streaming service. Snyder is producing the film alongside Deborah Snyder.

ARMY OF THE DEAD was first announced soon after the release of Snyder's DAWN OF THE DEAD, at which time the script in place was co-written by Joby Harold. Snyder didn't intend to direct the film back then, and at one point THE THING premake's Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. had been attached to direct. After spending more than a decade in development hell, it's finally moving forward with Snyder at the helm.

And it's going to give us the chance to see Dave Bautista kill zombies.