Two months after the launch of Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, Netflix is preparing to re-enter its zombie-infested world with the prequel film Army of Thieves. During the production’s panel at Comic-Con at Home 2021, Army of the Dead breakout star Matthias Schweighofer unveiled the first teaser for his upcoming prequel, which is set to release this fall.
The story takes place before the events of Army of the Dead during the beginning stages of the zombie outbreak. Ludwig Dieter is in his early days of safecracking and is hired by a mysterious woman to pull off a heist with the help of a misfit crew of aspiring thieves. The teaser features almost no zombies apart from a brief glimpse seen in a news broadcast. The film will feature a heist-heavy narrative set in Europe, away from the undead uprising in the United States.
The screenplay comes from Shay Hatten, who co-wrote Army of the Dead with Joby Harold. The cast of Army of Thieves includes Nathalie Emmanuel, Ruby O. Fee, Stuart Martin, Guz Khan, and Jonathan Cohen. Producers are Zack Snyder, Deborah Snyder, Wesley Coller, Dan Maag, and Schweighofer, from a story developed by Snyder and Hatten. Schweighofer is also the director of the film.
“It’s set in our same timeline, but it’s not like a zombie movie. It’s more like ‘The Italian Job,’ but it takes place in a world where these zombies exist in America and it’s causing instability in the banking institutions. They’re moving money around, so it’s the perfect opportunity for a heist,” said Deborah Synder.
Framestore was involved in the creative process of Army of the Dead, right from early concept art through to the film’s final VFX, working closely with Zack Snyder to reveal hoards of zombies, a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas and an undead tiger. In collaboration with VFX supervisor Marcus Taormina, Framestore’s Bob Winter and Joao Sita worked together on 500+ shots that took in expertise from the studio’s visual development, animation and VFX teams.
“We were thrilled to be working alongside Zack Snyder, to deliver this genre-bending film for Netflix,” said Winter. “It was a privilege for us to get involved from the get-go on such a broad range of creative work.”
“I couldn’t have asked for a better partner than Framestore. They did an amazing job bringing our post-apocalyptic world of Army of the Dead to life,” said Zack Synder. While Army of the Dead delivered superlative visuals, we cannot wait to see what the prequel holds.
The film is coming to Netflix in the fall of 2021, exact release date is yet to be announced.
