Army of the Dead Producers Explain the Meaning of the Title

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Army of the Dead takes its title from a long line of zombie movies titled "[Something] of the Dead," but what makes the Army relevant in Zack Snyder's new Las Vegas zombie heist movie? 2021 is already a big year for movies as theaters begin to open back up as we come out of our real-life pandemic, but it's especially big for Zack Snyder movies, as the near-mythical Snyder Cut released as Zack Snyder's Justice League in March, and now May will see the release of Snyder's first original film since Sucker Punch in 2011.

Zack Snyder's approach to Army of the Dead already promises to break a whole host of zombie movie norms, including the introduction of "alpha zombies, a faster, smarter breed of zombies produced when humans are bitten by "Zeus," the zombie outbreak's patient zero whose escape from Area 51 is what started the zombie outbreak six years before the events of the movie.

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Thanks to Screen Rant's opportunity to visit the Army of the Dead set in Atlantic City, NJ, in October 2019, we now have a better idea of what to expect from Army of the Dead, including what the title actually means. During our interview with Deborah Snyder, she revealed a bit about the zombie origin as well as what Zeus has been up to in Las Vegas in the six years since the city was sealed off:

"Zeus escapes from Area 51 and he's like our alpha, he's the king daddy, he starts the outbreak. When he bites you, we get other alphas. But if they bite you, it gets weaker and weaker and we get shamblers. It's been really fun because those that like traditional shamblers will get that, but we'll get these other alphas people think are a myth. At the time of the war there were only a few of them, obviously, and then once they contain it we realize that they're building an army in there of these alphas."

It may not come as much of a surprise that the Army of the Dead title's "army" is referring to an... army... of the dead... but the far more interesting part about this tease is the fact that it's an army of the smarter, faster alpha zombies and the army is being produced by Zeus for some unknown purpose. The exact nature of what happened to him in Area 51 will likely remain under wraps until the movie arrives, but Deborah Snyder teased a few options"so the idea that this, whether he's genetically engineered or he has part alien in him, but Zeus escapes from Area 51 and he's like our alpha, he's the king daddy, he starts the outbreak."

If Zeus is the product of genetic engineering or some kind of human experimentation, he may simply want revenge on the people that made him the way he is, but if his origin is something more alien, the sky isn't even the limit on what his agenda could be, ranging anywhere from him being a pawn in a larger intergalactic conquest or the first evolution of an evolution of human potential.

Whatever it is, it's clear Army of the Dead's zombie-killing heist team is in for far more than they bargained for when they go into the Vegas quarantine zone, and Zack Snyder's promised "no handcuffs" approach means viewers are in for a crazy ride when it arrives on Netflix on May 21st.