Zack Snyder teases in an exclusive interview that Army of Thieves characters could potentially return for the in-development Army of the Dead 2. Snyder's zombie-centric franchise began with Army of the Dead earlier this year in which a group of mercenaries concoct a plan to recover $200 million from a casino vault in Las Vegas, where a zombie outbreak has seen the Nevada city quarantined. The ensemble cast for the film included consisting of Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, Matthias Schweighöfer, Nora Arnezeder, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tig Notaro, Raúl Castillo, Huma Qureshi, and Garret Dillahunt.
Army of Thieves serves as a prequel spin-off to the first film centered on Matthias Schweighöfer's safecracker Dieter six years prior to the events of Army of the Dead as he is hired by a mysterious woman to pull off a heist with the help of a misfit crew of aspiring thieves. Alongside Schweighöfer, who also directs and produces the film, the cast includes Nathalie Emmanuel, Guz Khan, Ruby O. Fee, Stuart Martin, Jonathan Cohen, and Peter Simonischek. While audiences eagerly await the next installment of the franchise, Snyder is offering new details about plans for the next phase of Army of the Dead.
In an exclusive interview with Screen Rant for the film, Snyder opened up about Army of Thieves and future plans for his burgeoning Army of the Dead franchise. When asked about the possibility of characters introduced in the prequel being revisited for future installments in the series, Snyder teased where they likely were during the events of the first film and says the door is open for them to come back. See what Snyder said below:
"You know what, you never know. I mean, we have a plan right now for a sequel to Army of the Dead. And as you know, none of these guys... Really, they're all, I guess, in some prison somewhere. It would be very... It would not be a big... It wouldn't be a stretch, maybe, to see them again at some point."
With Army of Thieves set so long before the events of Army of the Dead and in the beginning stages of the in-universe zombie outbreak, there is certainly plenty of ground for Snyder and franchise co-writer Shay Hatten to explore its supporting characters in future installments. Should the surviving members of Dieter's crew in Army of Thieves be in prison during the events of the first film, it would easily ensure their avoiding the zombie apocalypse and joining the ranks of the undead in Sin City. As the prequel is still fresh on the streaming platform, it's unknown which of the misfit crew successfully make it through the heist or how they would cross over into the mainline films.
The supporting Army of Thieves characters aren't the only ones Snyder has teased could possibly return for Army of the Dead 2, as the co-writer/director recently hinted the presumed-dead Dieter could return for the sequel, now titled Planet of the Dead. If the safecracker indeed survived his confrontation with Alpha and the nuclear explosion at the end of the first film, it could see Dieter reuniting with his old crew for a new heist or a fight for survival against the expanding outbreak. In the meantime, the wait for Army of Thieves' arrival is over as it is now streaming on Netflix.
