See Zack Snyder’s New Army of the Dead Prequel Trailer For Netflix

Zack Snyder has a new entry in his Army of the Dead universe coming out.

By Jason Collins | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

zack snyder army of thieves

Has anyone seen a prequel movie that’s of an entirely different genre than the original? Well, we’re about to, given Zack Snyder’s announcement of Army of Thieves, which is a prequel to 2021’s epic Army of the Dead. The trailer for a new spin-off starred and directed by Matthias Scweighofer was released on Sunday during the announced San Diego Comic-Con At Home panel, revealing the cast and the few secrets about the project. See the trailer for yourself:

And while the movie’s synopsis reads like that a small-town bank teller, Ludwig Dieter, from Zack Snyder’s original film, gets drawn into the adventure of a lifetime, the recently released trailer reveals just what kind of story the audience should expect. Army of Thieves actually follows Ludwig Dieter, portrayed by Matthias Schewighofer himself, a safe-cracking expert and one of the original film’s most popular characters, on a life-changing journey from becoming a bank teller to a zombie-killing master thief.

In the trailer, Ludwig is recruited by Gwendoline, portrayed by Game of Throne and Fast and Furious actress Nathalie Emmanuel, to pull off a massive heist in America, using America’s new zombie outbreak as the perfect distraction. And while the movie is set in the Army of the Dead, post-outbreak world, the trailer and the movie itself aren’t zombie-centered, suggesting a different genre altogether. According to Zack Snyder’s wife, Deborah Snyder, the upcoming movie is more of a romantic comedy heist film that just happens to take place in a world in which the zombies outbreak in the US causes instability in the baking systems.

Joining Matthias Schweighofer and Natalie Emmanuel on the cast list is the British comedian Guz Khan, known for 2019’s Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Ruby O. Fee from 2019’s Polar. Other cast members include Stuart Martin from 2020’s Miss Scarlet and the Duke, Jonathan Cohen from Family Business television show, and Noemie Nakai from 2021’s Tokyo Vice.

army of thieves

And while the new trailer lacks zombie tigers and Dave Bautista, it certainly isn’t lacking in the action department. There are gunfights, armored personnel carriers, car crashes, and perhaps an additional zombie or two for the team of thieves to deal with. Of course, the trailer also depicts a massive safe, or safes, for Ludwig to crack. The movie completed production and is expected to release on Netflix in autumn as one of several spin-offs in the Army of the Dead franchise. So it would seem that Zack Snyder’s Snyderverse is happening after all, albeit on a different franchise.  

The production of Army of Thieves was greenlit by Netflix in September 2020, alongside with Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas anime spin-off to expand the franchise. A sequel to the original film was confirmed earlier this month, as a result of a two-year contract between Zack Snyder and Netflix, which was signed following the director’s falling out with Warner Bros. earlier this year. Netflix is, apparently, taking its expansion seriously and doesn’t mind instilling its own version of Snyderverse to achieve it.