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Zack Snyder’s “ARMY OF THE DEAD” revives at Netflix with Dave Bautista

Friday, April 5, 2019 | News

By MICHAEL GINGOLD

An undead epic that Zack Snyder first attempted to launch in 2008 has been reconceived and will now be a Netflix original, with a busy action star in the lead.

Deadline reports that Dave Bautista will star in ARMY OF THE DEAD, which Snyder (pictured below) will direct on a $70-million budget for Netflix. Back in ’08, Snyder (who made his feature debut with the DAWN OF THE DEAD update) was preparing to produce ARMY, with Matthijs van Heijningen (THE THING “premake”) directing from a script by Joby Harold about a father trying to rescue his young daughter in a Las Vegas overrun with zombies. The new incarnation, written by Snyder and Shay Hatten, involves a group of mercenaries attempting to pull off a major heist in a quarantined, ghoul-infested Vegas. Snyder is also producing with his wife Deborah. Bautista will next be seen in Yuen Woo-ping’s martial-arts extravaganza MASTER Z: IP MAN LEGACY, opening April 12, then as Drax in AVENGERS: ENDGAME two weeks later and Fox/Disney’s STUBER July 12.

Michael Gingold
Michael Gingold (RUE MORGUE's Head Writer) has been covering the world of horror cinema for over three decades, and in addition to his work for RUE MORGUE, he has been a longtime writer and editor for FANGORIA magazine and its website. He has also written for BIRTH.MOVIES.DEATH, SCREAM, IndieWire.com, TIME OUT, DELIRIUM, MOVIEMAKER and others. He is the author of the AD NAUSEAM books (1984 Publishing) and THE FRIGHTFEST GUIDE TO MONSTER MOVIES (FAB Press), and he has contributed documentaries, featurettes and liner notes to numerous Blu-rays, including the award-winning feature-length doc TWISTED TALE: THE UNMAKING OF "SPOOKIES" (Vinegar Syndrome).