There’s Way More ‘Army of the Dead’ Coming Soon

The following story contains spoilers for director Zack Snyder's Netflix movie Army of the Dead.

17 years after the fast-paced zombie awesomeness of his Dawn of the Dead remake, director Zack Snyder has made his grand return to the genre of the unliving with Netflix's Army of the Dead. And if 2 hours and 28 minutes of zombie heist magic wasn't enough for you, there's good news: more zombies are on the way. Army of the Dead has at least two spin-offs coming—one film and one TV series.

Even better, Snyder detailed in a recent Q+A (via SyFy) that he'd be open to exploring the world beyond these projects. "If it were possible or if anyone was interested in it, to continue the adventures of this world, it'd be fun. Who knows?" he said. "The world's your zombie oyster."

And as good as Army of the Dead is—and it's an absolute blast; it's hard to imagine any fan of the zombie or horror genre disliking this big, fun, romp—perhaps what it does best is world-building. From the first act of the movie, we see the massive scale and havoc that this evolved zombie outbreak has caused on Las Vegas; through good hints within dialogue and in-world TV shows, it's clear that there are many, may stories left to be told about this catastrophic event.

But in the meantime, let's just take a look at the ones that we do know are on the way.

Army of Thieves

Army of Thieves is a prequel spin-off of Army of the Dead that will focus on the German master code-breaker Ludwig Dieter, played by Matthias Schweighöfer (who is also the director!). Shay Hatten, who wrote John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum and co-wrote Army of the Dead also returned to write the screenplay.

The movie—definitively a prequel, because, well, you saw what happened to Dieter once he cracked the safe open in Army of the Dead—will focus on Dieter during the early days of the Zombie outbreak.

"We just wrapped on Army of Thieves," Snyder said in that same recent Q+A. The movie will show Dieter's backstory, "and how he fell in love with and got obsessed with cracking safes. And why the safe in [Army of the Dead] is significant to him, which it is." The movie is planned to hit Netflix in 2022.

Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas

Next up in this burgeoning universe is Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas, which is described as an Anime-inspired prequel series. The series is said to tell Scott's (Dave Bautista) origin story, and several other key actors from the film (Ella Purnell, Ana de la Reguera, Tig Notaro, and Omari Hardwick) will also reprise their roles.

Joe Manganiello, playing a new character named Rose, will be the show's protagonist; other new names joining the cast include Christian Slater, Vanessa Hudgens, Harry Lenix, Ross Butler, and Jena Malone.

Snyder also said in the recent Q+A that the Lost Vegas prequel series "tells the story of where the zombies came from and what their deal is," and we assume that means more than just what we see in Army of the Dead's thrilling opening moments.

"It goes to Area 51 and does a whole a bunch of psychedelic craziness, which is cool," he continued. "Let's just say it scales in a way that's unexpected as far where the zombies come from."

Army of the Dead 2 (?)

There's zero evidence that this is happening just yet—but let's just spitball for a little. If you saw the end of Army of the Dead, there's one clear takeaway: this outbreak is about to get worse. One of the good guys, Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick), made it out of the Vegas containment zone and now has a whole lot of money. What's he going to do with that money? Well, he's going to use it to bribe flight attendants to take the first privately owned jet out of town. And then we see the big reveal: he's been bitten. Good guy no more.

That leaves us with a few options. If Army of the Dead is as massive of a streaming hit as Netflix seems to expect it will be, there could be outcry for a sequel. And clearly this ending shows us that a big outbreak would make narrative sense. Then again, Zack Snyder's last zombie movie, 2004's Dawn of the Dead ended on a similarly grim note, and sort of just left everyone hanging for the rest of time to figure out on their own.

So, in a nutshell? It's going to be up to Mr. Snyder to decide if he wants to keep pushing this story forward.

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