Given the huge movies which Zack Snyder has helmed in recent years, including MAN OF STEEL and BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE, it can be easy to forget that his first film was a remake of George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD. As remakes went, it was pretty good, so I'm excited to hear that Snyder will be returning to the world of zombies for his next feature-film.
THR has reported that Zack Snyder has signed on the direct ARMY OF THE DEAD for Netflix, a zombie horror thriller which will be "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." Snyder also came up with the story for ARMY OF THE DEAD which has been scripted by Joby Harold (KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD). After stepping away from JUSTICE LEAGUE to deal with a family tragedy close to two years ago, Snyder felt that it was now time to return "I thought this was a good palate cleanser to really dig in with both hands and make something fun and epic and crazy and bonkers in the best possible way," Snyder said, adding that he's quite excited to dive into a film without being shackled with creative handcuffs.
I love to honor canon and the works of art, but this is the opportunity to find a purely joyful way to express myself though a genre. It will be the most kick-ass, self-aware — but not in a wink-to-the-camera way — balls-to-the-wall zombie freakshow that anyone has ever seen. No one’s ever let me completely loose [like this]… I love big action, I love big sequences. My movie brain starts clicking around and I was like, ‘We need to be shooting this now!’ Constructing these sequences really fired me up.
Zack Snyder is also pumped to get back in the trenches, so to speak, and actually operate a camera once again. "When the movie gets super big, you get pushed away from the camera," Snyder noted. "And in the last few years I’ve had a reconnection with photography. This movie will be a chance to get the camera in hand." The project has been a long time coming as it was first set up at Warner Bros., with Snyder producing, back in 2007. Production on ARMY OF THE DEAD is expected to get started ths summer with a budget in the $90 million range. I don't know about you, but I'm excited!