Nearly two years after stepping away from movies to deal with a family tragedy, Zack Snyder is back. The Justice League director has signed on for Army of the Dead for Netflix.
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According to The Hollywood Reporter, Snyder is set to direct and produce the zombie horror thriller with his partner, wife Deborah Snyder through their production company Stone Quarry. Netflix is taking over the project from Warner Bros. where it had been since 2007.
Army of the Dead will be set during a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas and see a man who brings together a group of mercenaries to venture into the quarantined zone to pull off “the greatest heist ever attempted”. Snyder himself came up with the story for Army of the Dead, with Joby Harold penning the script. The report says that the film will have a significant budget and may start filming this summer.
For Snyder, the film is an opportunity to start fresh and do something original after having worked with Warner Bros. on DC films for years.
“There are no handcuffs on me at all with this one,” Snyder said.
Army of the Dead will be, in many ways, a completely different experience for Snyder. The filmmaker spent years creating the DC Extended Universe and was working on the eagerly-anticipated Justice League when, in March 2017, Snyder’s daughter Autumn died by suicide. The tragedy prompted Snyder to step away from the film that May with Joss Whedon being brought in to complete the film — with Whedon’s addition a move which remains controversial among some fans.
During his time away, Snyder has worked on various personal projects, such as working with suicide awareness and prevention causes, rebrandnig his production company, and possibly even work on his adaptation of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead — Snyder told a fan on Vero last May that Fountainhead was likely his next project. While it seems like Fountainhead may be on the back burner for now, Snyder told The Hollywood reporter he’s looking forward to getting back behind the camera with Army of the Dead.
“I thought this was a good palate cleanser to really dig in with both hand and make something fun and epic and crazy and bonkers in the best possible way,” Snyder said.
“I love to honor canon and the works of art, but this is the opportunity to find a purely joyful way to express myself through a genre,” Snyder went on to explain. “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].”
Stay with ComicBook.com for more updates on Snyder’s Army of the Dead.
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