Zack Snyder Set to Direct Zombie Thriller Army of the Dead for Netflix

According to The Hollywood Reporter, filmmaker Zack Snyder (Justice League, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice) has signed on for his next project. He’s signed on to direct a new zombie horror thriller, Army of the Dead, for Netflix.

Snyder will direct and produce the film alongside his wife and producing partner, Deborah Snyder, under their new production company, Stone Quarry. Wesley Coller is also attached to produce the project.

Snyder conceived the story for the film, which is written by Joby Harold. It’s described as an adventure story amid a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, where a man assembles a group of mercenaries to take the ultimate gamble, going into a quarantined zone to pull off “the greatest heist ever attempted.”

Netflix took over the project from Warner Bros., where it was previously set up in 2007. It’s slated to start shooting later this summer. According to the report, the budget could be as high as $90 million.

The project marks a return to zombie thrillers for Snyder. He made his feature directorial debut with 2004’s Dawn of the Dead remake. He was later largely known for dark and gritty comic book adaptations, such as 300 and Watchmen before becoming one of the chief architects of the shared DCEU universe with Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Speaking on the news, Zack Snyder stated, “There are no handcuffs on me at all with this one.” He added, “I thought this was a good palate cleanser to really dig in with both hands and make something fun and epic and crazy and bonkers in the best possible way”

Zack Snyder continued: “I love to honor canon and the works of art, but this is the opportunity to find a purely joyful way to express myself though a genre. It will be the most kick-ass, self-aware — but not in a wink-to-the-camera way — balls-to-the-wall zombie freakshow that anyone has ever seen. No one’s ever let me completely loose [like this].”

Additionally, he seems very excited about this project. He stated, “I love big action, I love big sequences. My movie brain starts clicking around and I was like, ‘We need to be shooting this now!’ Constructing these sequences really fired me up.”

Netflix reportedly sought out the project from Warner Bros. The report indicates this new precedent could lead to studios selling other projects to Netflix in the future.