The internet goes crazy for Zack Snyder’s movies. Just look at his 4-hour monster cut of Justice League, which would never have happened if legions of fans on social media didn’t demonstrate how desperate they were to see it. The Snyder Cut turned out to be a pretty big success, and now we can all set our sights on his next project: Army of the Dead.
Coming to Netflix, this R-rated zombie flick sounds like it will push the boundaries of its already mature rating. Snyder has been developing the project for 10 years and already has plans for a spin-off to follow. The film follows a group of mercenaries played by Dave Bautista (Scott Ward), Huma Qureshi (Geeta), and Matthias Schweighöfer (Ludwig Dieter) who head to Las Vegas in an attempt to pull off the greatest heist of all time, all while avoiding intelligent-seeming zombies. And there’s a zombie tiger named Valentine.
The movie looks to deliver plenty of gore and graphic nudity, but there’s still a line that Snyder won’t cross. Speaking to The Sunday Times, the filmmaker was asked which scenes he deemed too crude to make the final cut, and one came to mind:
"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."
That’s probably for the best, although the movie will have plenty of other images to haunt our nightmares.
But Army of the Dead also has a heart. Its name evokes the other “of the dead” movies from zombie godfather Geroge A. Romero. In fact, one of Snyder’s breakout movies was a remake of Romero’s iconic Dawn of the Dead. Similar to Romero’s work, Army of the Dead will use the apocalyptic setting as a means to tackle social issues.
“George Romero said it was all social commentary,” Snyder explained. “And we felt obliged to do that with this movie. Editorialize a little bit and zombie movies are a great place to talk about us as a people. Ours is a monster movie where the monster is us. It is a social movie more than a science movie — the science is pretty iffy!”
Army of the Dead is coming to movie theaters!
In a move rare for Netflix, Army of the Dead is coming to movie theaters as well as streaming. According to Variety, it will arrive in theaters on May 14, one week before it premiere’s on Netflix. Not only does this give moviegoers a reason to go and watch it early, but it will also give theaters a much-needed boost after the business was devastated by the pandemic.
Army of the Dead will premiere in 200 Cinemark locations across the US. All told, it will be screening in 600 locations! That’s still not close to how many screens other big movies get, although it’s Netflix’s biggest theatrical release yet. If you do go, please remember to stay safe!
If you’re not keen on attending a movie theater or you live outside the US, Army of the Dead drops on Netflix on May 21, 2021.
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