Zack Snyder Didn't Change Army of the Dead's Plot After the Pandemic

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Zack Snyder confirms Army of the Dead wasn't changed because of the coronavirus pandemic. After spending years around superheroes, Snyder is returning to his roots with zombie flick Army of the Dead. The film is not a sequel to his directorial debut Dawn of the Dead, but will instead introduce a new world and new characters. Set to premiere later this week on Netflix, Army of the Dead focuses on a crew of mercenaries led by Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) who venture into the quarantine zone of Las Vegas with an eye on a large cash prize lying beneath a casino. The only issue? Hundreds of zombies are in their way.

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Army of the Dead was filmed back in 2019, well before the coronavirus pandemic swept the world. However, it needed to undergo some reshoots last year when Chris D'Elia was replaced by Tig Notaro. Though it might not have started out that way, there's no question that Army of the Dead holds some connections to the global events of the past year. Just the word "quarantine" has taken on new connotations, which makes one wonder if Snyder adjusted any part of the film because of the pandemic.

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The answer on that front is no. Screen Rant participated in a press event for Army of the Dead, where Snyder commented on whether he and his team ever considered changing certain plot elements - such as temperature checks and governments abusing authority - to avoid potential backlash stemming from the pandemic. Snyder had this to say:

Zack Snyder: No, we never really talked about it, other than that we had taken some time to do the reshoots and stuff. Also the tone of the movie and its point is social commentary, it just happens to land a little harder now.

There are many projects that have debuted over the past year that hit harder than normal purely because of the pandemic, from Oscar winner Nomadland to optimistic superhero flick Wonder Woman 1984. With a plot that specifically hinges on the effects of a virus, Army of the Dead was always bound to draw comparisons to real life events. However, it was smart of Snyder to avoid altering the project to fit (or sidestep) the pandemic. Audiences can already draw their own conclusions from what's happening onscreen, and Army of the Dead was made before this even happened. Better to let it release as it always planned to.

Army of the Dead will be the first in what could become a proper franchise for Netflix, with an animated prequel and live-action feature prequel already on the way. Whether future stories set within this Army of the Dead universe could later reflect the pandemic remains to be seen, but it's likely that there will be unintentional connections. After all, from this point on it will likely be hard to avoid comparisons to coronavirus. Still, if Army of the Dead feels more relevant than expected, it wasn't planned to be that way.