Zack Snyder likes to do things big, and Army of the Dead was a prime example. The almost two and a half hour apocalyptic thriller landed on Netflix to a mixed critical reception, but an overwhelming amount of attention as it quickly became one of the most-watched original movies on Netflix with more than 75 million people dropping in to watch. Now with prequel movie Army of Thieves expanding the idea towards its inevitable franchise status, attention is during to the next installments, including an animated series and a direct sequel titled Planet of the Dead. While Snyder has only recently begun teasing the trilogy-completing movie, it looks like things are going to get a lot wilder when the next film does come down the line.
Army of Thieves surprised everyone when it arrived on Netflix last month, very quickly after the release of Army of the Dead. Fans shouldn’t expect Planet of the Dead to follow with quite the same speed, and much of the work on Thieves had been completed back in 2020, so post-production was well underway by the time Army of the Dead dropped. While Snyder has a very definite idea of what he wants to see in the sequel, he once again wants to mix more genres into the franchise, which means that along with the established world of zombies, we could well be looking a more sci-fi elements coming into play such as time-loops, aliens, portals and more. As Snyder told Variety:
“First of all, I know exactly what I’d want to see in the sequel. We’re doing the animated series, which will come out next year. The animated series very much delves deeply into the “why” of the zombie apocalypse and where the zombies come from exactly. I think the time loops, portals, doorways to other realms, things of that nature, are very much in play. So all of those clues that Dieter gives us are very much part of how we continue to spiral out the Army of the Dead universe.”
In the series so far, there have been a number of throw away lines about time-loops, but these have not been dwelt on for long and mostly slipped under the radar. Of course, there are some people who watch these things with a notebook and pen, and there have been plenty of fan theories that there is more happening in the world Snyder has created than he has let on so far. The latest comments from Zack Snyder are not about to quell those theories, but are mostly just going to push even more questions about where the franchise is about to go when Planet of the Dead arrives on Netflix sometime in the next couple of years.
In the meantime, it could be possible that more answers on where it is all heading will come from the planned animated series, which comes with the title of Lost Vegas, and will premiere sometime in 2022. One thing clear is that Snyder has his hooks very much into building this world as far as Netflix will allow him, and as long as people keep coming back to it, he could have some way to go yet before he’s done. This news comes to us from Variety.