Coming to select theaters on May 14 and Netflix on May 21, Zack Snyder‘s new zombie movie Army of the Dead promises to be bonkers, with the trailer teasing that there’s even a Zombie Tiger in the mix. And that’s not even as wild as Snyder is getting with this one, as he also teases in a new interview with Movie Web that the film features… Robot Zombies?!
“I had the idea from the beginning that these zombies were going to embody an evolution, that they were on their way to becoming something else, not stagnant like the zombies we’re used to. It was a way to make them fresh, while still delivering the zombie canon in some ways,” Snyder explains. “I really wanted this sort of weird ambiguity to their origins – which, of course, we’ll explore in the animated series. And without giving away too much…if you pay close attention, there’s a number of zombies that are clearly not zombies.”
Snyder continues, “You see normal zombies and then you see some robot zombies. Are they monitors that the government has placed among the zombies to monitor them? Are they technology from the other world? What’s happening there?”
Evolved zombies are of course nothing new, as George Romero played around with that idea across the various movies in his own zombie universe. But we never did see Zombie Tigers or “Robot Zombies” in Romero’s zombie-land, so it sounds like Snyder is indeed trying to take the sub-genre to some interesting new places. What the hell even are Robot Zombies, you ask?
We’ll find out next month. Check out the previously released trailer below.
In the Netflix movie…
“Army of the Dead takes place following a zombie outbreak that has left Las Vegas in ruins and walled off from the rest of the world. When Scott Ward (Dave Bautista), a displaced Vegas local, former zombie war hero who’s now flipping burgers on the outskirts of the town he now calls home, is approached by casino boss Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada), it’s with the ultimate proposition: Break into the zombie-infested quarantine zone to retrieve $200 million sitting in a vault beneath the strip before the city is nuked by the government in 32 hours.
“Driven by the hope that the payoff could help pave the way to a reconciliation with his estranged daughter Kate (Ella Purnell), Ward takes on the challenge, assembling a ragtag team of experts for the heist. They include Maria Cruz (Ana de la Reguera), an ace mechanic and Ward’s old friend; Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick), a zombie killing machine; Marianne Peters (Tig Notaro), a cynical helicopter pilot; Mikey Guzman (Raúl Castillo), a go-for-broke influencer and Chambers (Samantha Win), his ride-or-die; Martin (Garret Dillahunt), the casino’s head of security; a badass warrior known as the Coyote (Nora Arnezeder) who recruits Burt Cummings (Theo Rossi), a slimy security guard; and a brilliant German safe cracker named Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer).
“Scott finds an unexpected emotional hurdle when Kate joins the expedition to search for Geeta (Huma S. Qureshi), a mother who’s gone missing inside the city. With a ticking clock, a notoriously impenetrable vault, and a smarter, faster horde of Alpha zombies closing in, only one thing’s for certain in the greatest heist ever attempted: survivors take all.”
The film is written by Zack Snyder, Shay Hatten and Joby Harold.
Army of the Dead is also getting a live-action prequel *and* an animated prequel series