Justice League director Zack Snyder has officially announced that he is returning to his horror roots to direct and produce Netflix‘s Army of the Dead, THR reports.
Snyder who had previously stepped away from the production of Justice League after a family tragedy has been signed on to direct and produce the upcoming zombie heist film for Netflix. The project will also be produced by Snyder’s colleague and wife, Deborah Snyder through his recently rebranded production company, Stone Quarry. Stone Quarry’s Wesley Coller is also attached to the project.
Also read: Gamestop Pulls Plug On Buyout Efforts
Snyder is no stranger to zombie cinema after making his directorial debut with Dawn of the Dead in 2004 formulated the story for Army of the Dead, with King Arthur: Legend of The Sword‘s Joby Harold penning the script. The zombie picture 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 a quarantine zone to pull off the greatest heist ever attempted.
Warner Bros. had been developing and setting up Army of the Dead since 2007, but decided to hand over the project to Netflix who has decided to push the gas on production. Sources close to the project have reported that shooting is set to start this summer with the budget possibly reaching up to $90+ million.
The four time DC director has voiced his excitement about the production.
In an interview with THR, Snyder stated, “There are no handcuffs on me at all with this one,”
“I love to honor canon and the works of art,” he added, “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].”
Snyder also said that he has been energized by the prospect of making this particular story. “I love big action, I love big sequences,” he said. “My movie brain starts clicking around and I was like, ‘We need to be shooting this now!’ Constructing these sequences really fired me up.”
While Snyder may be a veteran big-budget tentpole director following credits like Batman v Superman, Man of Steel, and Justice League, he missed being able to actually operate the camera and being “in the trenches” with everyone else on production.
“When the movie gets super big, you get pushed away from the camera,” he notes. “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.”
This seems like an accurate description for Netflix’s noteworthy relationship as a distributor that gives its directors creative freedom over their projects. Inside sources reported that Netflix personally identified and sought out the film from Warner Bros., which could mean that the multi-billion dollar film studio could possibly be forging a relationship with the streaming platform in which they sell certain projects off to them.
With a summer 2019 shooting date, it is likely that Army of the Dead is scheduled to release sometime next year.
What do you think of this news? Are you excited for Army of the Dead? Let us know in the comments below!
