Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead is officially expanding at Netflix with a prequel film set to release in late 2021. The big-budget zombie heist film already has a planned anime-style prequel series called Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas that will follow several of the characters we met in the movie, but the new film, Army of Thieves, is expected to center on Ludwig Dieter and his early days of safecracking.
However, Army of Thieves will not be directed by Snyder. He has passed the baton to Matthias Schweighöfer, who also stars as Dieter and is returning to reprise that role. He’ll be pulling double duty for this movie. Snyder and Deborah Snyder have returned to produce, and the story is an original one co-written by Snyder and his frequent collaborator Shay Hatten.
Apart from Schweighöfer, the film also stars Nathalie Emmanuel, Guz Khan, Ruby O. Fee, Stuart Martin, Jonathan Cohen, Noemie Nakai, Peter Simonischek, and John Bubniak.
The official logline for Army of Thieves:
"In this prequel to Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, small-town bank teller Dieter gets drawn into the adventure of a lifetime when a mysterious woman recruits him to join a crew of Interpol’s most wanted criminals, attempting to heist a sequence of legendary, impossible-to-crack safes across Europe."
Army of Thieves is releasing on Netflix later this year
We have some first-look images of the film, which does not yet have an official release date yet, but is expected to come out later this year. Based on that, I would guess Netflix is holding the film for a late fall release, perhaps to coincide with the Halloween season.
The film is also being classified as a romantic comedy heist film that takes place during the early stages of the zombie outbreak we saw in Army of the Dead. While not technically a zombie movie, it is expected that they will appear in some form.
Deborah Snyder says the film has a similar tone to The Italian Job and will “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.”
Check out the first images for the film below:
Are you looking forward to Army of Thieves? What do you hope to see from the film? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Army of Thieves will release on Netflix later this year. Army of the Dead is currently streaming.