Zack Snyder Teases Time Loop for Army of the Dead Sequel Planet of the Dead

One of the most popular fan theories about Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead will seemingly play into the plot of its upcoming follow-ups. In a new interview, Snyder referenced a “time loop,” seemingly giving credence to the idea that certain elements of the film were hinting at a reality-bending take on the movie, in which the characters have seemingly been trying their heist over and over again, meeting their doom and “respawning” at some point. This is signified in Army of the Dead by a pile of bodies dressed identically to the team, and a trio of identical guns lined up on the wall inside a vault where that doesn’t make any sense.

The theory has become popular with fans. In the movie, it’s actually introduced by Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick), who proposes the idea, but doesn’t dwell on it.

“I’m a huge fan of this mythological understory [of the universe],” Snyder told GamesRadar. “All your time loop fun that you can have, there’s a lot of cool enhancements that are baked in now,” Snyder adds. “I can’t wait to make the sequel to Army of the Dead, so that we can see how then all of those things manifest.”

In a recent interview with Inverse, Zack Snyder didn’t just reveal that the sequel film will be called Planet of the Dead, he also teased that one major franchise character could make a surprise return! That character would be Ludwig Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer), the boyish expert safecracker who looked wholly out of place in Dave Bautista’s Army of the Dead crew. Ludwig is actually the main character of the Army of Thieves prequel, which follows his run of high-stakes heists before the zompocalypse happened. And as Snyder revealed, Ludwig could actually show up in Planet of the Dead, as well: 

“The real adventure would be to see what happened to [Ludwig] when that safe door closed. Did he get killed by Zeus or not? What happened? We don’t see him die on camera, and there’s still some time left. I won’t tell you what happens in Army of the Dead 2 — aka Planet of the Dead — but let’s just say that there’s a chance Dieter survives.”

Army of the Dead is streaming on Netflix. Army of Thieves drops on Friday on the streaming service.