A few years ago, Zack Snyder started building the Army of the Dead franchise at the Netflix streaming service. His zombie movie Army of the Dead was quickly followed by a prequel called Army of Thieves. An animated series called Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas was in the works, and Snyder himself was expected to direct the Army of the Dead sequel Planet of the Dead. He was developing the Planet of the Dead script with Shay Hatten, who co-wrote the first film with him… But we haven’t heard anything more about that project in a while, because Snyder has shifted his focus to building another franchise at Netflix. The sci-fi franchise Rebel Moon. Now, in an interview with The Nerd Queens (as reported by Collider), Snyder has confirmed that Planet of the Dead will have to wait until after they know exactly where the Rebel Moon franchise is going.
Snyder told The Nerd Queens, “As far as the Army Universe goes, it’s still alive and well in my mind. I know exactly what I would do. It really depends on how we try to figure out how we go forward with Rebel Moon and the Rebel Moon universe. It’s not a small-time commitment, Rebel Moon stuff. A sci-fi thing at this scale does require a lot of attention to make it all make sense.“
Speaking with Inverse in 2021, Snyder hinted that Matthias Schweighöfer may reprise his Army of Thieves and Army of the Dead role of Ludwig Dieter in Planet of the Dead, and that Schweighöfer’s Army of Thieves co-star Nathalie Emmanuel (as a character named Gwendoline) might get mixed up in the zombie action with him. He said (SPOILERS if you haven’t watched Army of the Dead): “The real adventure would be to see what happened to (Ludwig Dieter) when that safe door closed. Did he get killed by Zeus or not? What happened? We don’t see him die on camera, and there’s still some time left. I won’t tell you what happens in Army of the Dead 2 — aka Planet of the Dead — but let’s just say that there’s a chance Dieter survives. And there’s a chance that brush with death would have caused him to want to find a jailed Gwendoline.“
Are you looking forward to Planet of the Dead? Are you disappointed that it will have to wait until after Snyder figures out the “Rebel Moon stuff”, or are you too excited about Rebel Moon to mind? Share your thoughts on these projects by leaving a comment below.
Our reviewers The Iceman and Chris Bumbray were both fans of Army of the Dead. You can read The Iceman’s positive review of the film HERE and Bumbray’s 8/10 review at THIS LINK. Army of Thieves has also earned an 8/10 review from Bumbray; you can read that HERE.