Zack Snyder updates us on the status of Army of the Dead 2…

Photo: Netflix

Zack Snyder made his name with his gruesome, much more action-y remake of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead in 2004. The director then tried to line up an even bigger sequel called Army of the Dead for years, but there were many detours along the way, including his eventual role as the chief architect of the early DCEU. He finally returned to his long-lost zombie sequel in 2021, this time as the launching point of a whole new cinematic universe for Netflix, which also included a crime thriller prequel called Army of Thieves and even an animated series about the initial outbreak in Las Vegas.

There was also talk of a direct sequel to Army of the Dead, which left no shortage of mysteries left to answer in a part two. Were Dave Bautista’s Scott Ward and his team of mercenaries in a time loop all along? What’s up with those robot zombies? Did Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick) bring the zombie virus to Mexico? And what is the true nature of their enigmatic employer Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada)?

For a minute there, it seemed like Snyder, his co-writer Shay Hatten, and Netflix were full steam ahead with the next chapter of the story. Then the director shifted gears to work on his other big Netflix franchise, the sci-fi epic Rebel Moon, leaving the future of Army of the Dead in question. So when we caught up with Snyder via Zoom to talk about Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver ahead of its release on the streaming service this week, we had to ask him about the status of his Army of the Dead sequel.

Is Army of the Dead 2 a go? Not quite, according to the director.

“Army of the Dead 2 is not on the way right this second,” Snyder confirmed to Den of Geek. “Shay [Hatten] and I, we’ve written treatments, we know exactly what we would do. It’s really a scheduling thing at this point.”

Snyder has in no way cooled on the idea of more stories in his zombie universe, though. The director is quick to point out that not only does he have a title for his next Dead picture but that there’s a direct connection between his zombie and Rebel Moon.

“We just have to press Netflix and be like, ‘Look, we need Army of the Dead 2.’ [It’s] Planet of the Dead, we know what it is. And you know, there’s a possible crossover between Rebel Moon and the Army of the Dead universes. They’re a shared universe.”

Snyder previously teased how exactly that crossover could work in the animated series Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas, which also currently trapped in limbo at Netflix.

“There’s actually a character from Rebel Moon in the Army of the Dead animated series that we never did,” Snyder previously revealed to Total Film in 2023. “At one point in the show, they go through a portal into another dimension, and there are characters in that other dimension that they come across. In Rebel Moon, they’re in this bar, and one of the aliens is one of the characters from the animatic.”

Later, in a separate interview with Total Film, Snyder suggested that work could restart on the animated series at some point: “We were working on – and are trying to get back up – our Army animated series, which was really cool. We recorded the whole thing, we recorded all the voices – Christian Slater, all these cool people. Super fun.”

What’s next for Snyder after completing Rebel Moon? The filmmaker has said that, like with Planet of the Dead, he already knows where a Rebel Moon Part 3 would go. Time will tell which Netflix franchise gets Snyder’s attention next.