The producers of Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead have explained the film’s zombie hierarchy and how the fearsome alpha zombies work. The film, which stars Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, and others, follows a band of elite commandos who attempt to heist money from a Las Vegas casino in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Army of the Dead is scheduled for release on May 21, on Netflix and in select theaters.
The history of zombie films is expansive, spanning numerous tones, styles, and genres. Army of the Dead looks to be of the action/comedy variety, with a bit of heist thrown in for good measure. Even the realm of more lighthearted zombie movies is pretty crowded, however, which makes it difficult for any one film to differentiate itself from all that’s come before. Army of the Dead is trying its best to carve a unique space for itself in the genre, both in terms of its stylistic approach and its zombie lore.
In an interview with Screen Rant, Army of the Dead’s producers discussed its zombie hierarchy and the dangerous alpha zombies leading the horde. “We have two kinds of zombies in the movie,” producer Deborah Snyder explained. “We have our traditional shamblers, for those who like shamblers, and then we have alphas.” Producer Wesley Coller added that the alphas are a key piece of the film’s “mythological” zombie lore. Read the full quotes from Snyder and Coller below.
Deborah Snyder: I think the idea is like what else can we do? What else can make it fresh because there has been a lot of zombie content out there, 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. 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.
Wesley Coller: So these creatures that are mythological sort of lore, the fast ones that are unknown. Do they exist or not? As we make our way into the city we get to explore that world, and I think part of the fun is unlike a traditional shambler, which is a threat in its own right because there is an elevated Consciousness, there's some type of awareness we like to say that they are much like a wolf pack, so they're not talking, they're not communicating on that obvious of a level, but there's a much more elevated threat in that way.
Netflix has already ordered additional Army of the Dead content ahead of the film’s release, including an animated series focused on the early days of the zombie outbreak. There's also a live-action prequel movie, Army of Thieves, that features Matthias Schweighöfer reprising his character Ludwig Dieter from the first film. Zack Snyder has discussed the “Zombie Bible” created for the Army of the Dead franchise, which details the origins and mechanics of the different kinds of undead. If the film does well, it could be the start of an expansive zombie franchise for Netflix.
Zombie content was once a titanic force in the TV and film industry, but it has subsided somewhat in recent years. The Walking Dead has continued to find immense success across multiple series, however, and other properties have helped keep the undead torch burning. Depending on how the alpha zombies play into the story of Army of the Dead, they could be set up as major villains for future projects as well, providing an interesting twist to the zombie genre’s newest addition. Army of the Dead releases on Netflix on May 21.
