Production on Zack Snyder‘s Army of the Dead had already been completed when, in 2020, stand-up comedian Chris D’Elia was accused of sexually harassing underage girls prompting Snyder and Netflix to remove D’Elia from the film. Instead, D’Elia was replaced by Tig Notaro. It’s a decision that may have itself been easy, but the actual work of removing one actor for another had its technical challenges — and its costs. According to Snyder and his wife, producer Deborah Snyder, the cost to digitally erase D’Elia and then do reshoots for Notaro costs millions.
“I think it was a fairly easy one,” Snyder told Vanity Fair when asked about the decision to replace D’Elia.
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“It was an expensive one, that’s for sure,” Deborah added, noting that the cost to remove D’Elia had a cost along the lines of the costs associated with making Army of Thieves, the Army of the Dead prequel.
While the decision to replace D’Elia with Notaro was easy, Snyder has previously explained that the actual work was a bit more complex, largely due to how Army of the Dead was shot. Snyder, who served as his own Director of Photography on the film, previously told UPROXX the use of lighting offered a unique challenge.
“Maybe I’ll get some kind of technical award as a DP for putting her in that movie, because that part was hard,” Snyder said. “It was funny because I shot the movie in a really super organic way, and I was like, oh, this is going to be cool, available light, and it’s going to be minimal and all this. And then cut to me on the stage, I have to recreate that in the most sterile circumstance possible with the most lights and the most everything. And so it was interesting. You have to really understand where the light is all the time to make it match, and you light the green screens correctly, it’s really problematic, but it was good. It was fun. It was an awesome exercise. And Tig is awesome.
Snyder added, “I was shocked that she said yes, frankly. So that was the goodness for me, that she wanted to do it.”
Army of the Dead is now streaming on Netflix.
Have you seen Army of the Dead? What did you think of Tig Notaro’s appearance in the film? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section!
