Zack Snyder Breaks Down Army of the Dead Trailer Shot by Shot

Ahead of the debut of his new zombie movie, Netflix has released a new video where director Zack Snyder breaks down the trailer for his upcoming horror-action movie Army of the Dead. Though not exactly “every shot,” the filmmaker behind Justice League and Dawn of the Dead offers some choice details about the movie, its production, and other behind-the-scenes secrets. Among those mentioned by Snyder include: Much of the interior Vegas shots were actually filmed in Atlantic City, one explosion got too big and poked a hole in the set, and the shot of Dave Bautista running on tables was a concept art drawing they created before production that came to life.

Another element Snyder mentions in the below video is how they arrived on the figure of $200 million being the target of the big heist in the film, specifically the actual limitations of moving that much money. “What we did is we weighed the money and we started to talk about the practicalities of moving the cash,” Snyder said. “At a scale beyond $200 million you kind of start to need a forklift, and even that in the case of this, there might have been $200 million in there but we never were going to be able to get a full $200 million out. Not with this amount of guys and in one trip and have enough room in the helicopter to carry that. So there was a lot of that math.”

Snyder also opened up about some of the terms they invented on the set, how many zombies ended up being practical, and that the zombie tiger stemmed from an idea they previously had for an entire zoo sequence.

The filmmaker has been speaking left and right about his upcoming new project in recent reviews, even revealing in one this week the idea they had that got cut for being too much. When asked in an interview with The Times if there was a moment in the film that was cut because he thought it went too far, Snyder replied: “Yes. We had a sequence where one of the male strippers had a huge penis with a bite taken out of it….We thought that was too much.”

Army of the Dead is scheduled to have a limited run in theaters starting May 14th and will stream exclusively on Netflix starting on May 21st.