'Army Of Thieves' First Look: The 'Army Of The Dead' Prequel Hits Netflix This Fall
Dieter, the best character in Zack Snyder's so-so zombie heist flick Army of the Dead, is getting his own prequel movie in the form of Army of Thieves. Matthias Schweighöfer returns to the role, and directs the movie, too, leading a cast that includes Nathalie Emmanuel, Ruby O. Fee, Stuart Martin, Guz Khan, Jonathan Cohen, and Noémie Nakai. While it doesn't premiere until the fall, some Army of Thieves first look images have arrived, and you can check them out below.
I was mixed on Army of the Dead, an over-long, over-serious attempt to blend a heist movie with a zombie flick. But one of the bright spots in the film was Matthias Schweighöfer, playing safe cracker Dieter. The movie would've been a heck of a lot better if it had given us more Dieter scenes, but we can now settle for the next best thing: a prequel about the character. Zack Snyder & Shay Hatten came up with the story, with Hatten penning the script. And not only does Matthias Schweighöfer return to the Dieter role, he also directs.
The Adventure of a Lifetime
In the prequel, "small-town bank teller Dieter gets drawn into the adventure of a lifetime when a mysterious woman recruits him to join a crew of Interpol's most wanted criminals, attempting to heist a sequence of legendary, impossible-to-crack safes across Europe." Schweighöfer's co-stars include Nathalie Emmanuel, Ruby O. Fee, Stuart Martin, Guz Khan, Jonathan Cohen, and Noémie Nakai.
"Where Did He Come From?"
Army of Thieves is just one of several potential spin-offs surrounding Army of the Dead. "Initially, we were just trying to make [Army of the Dead], you know, and do it the best we can while in the process of making it," said producer Deborah Snyder. "But as we made it and started to create this world, the first thing we developed was we have this six episode anime series [Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas] that'll be on Netflix that goes into the backstory of where the pathogen came from and where the zombies came from."
Snyder continued:
"Then, as we started seeing the popularity and people really loved Dieter's character, so we came up with this idea of asking, 'Where did he come from?' He's German, and I think a great thing about Netflix is it has such a global footprint, there's more subscribers internationally than in the states. So what if we did something for the international market that is a heist romantic comedy taking place during the time of the pandemic but it doesn't have a lot of zombies in it. And they let us do that too [with Army of Thieves]!"
Will There Be Zombies Again? Maybe
"Zack called me and said, 'Do you want to produce this movie with my company? And do you want to be the director and the star of the film?'" Schweighöfer said in a separate interview. "And it was like, of course I said, 'What, oh, my God, yes — wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute — Okay, let's do this!'" But will Army of Thieves feature zombies like Army of the Dead? When asked about this, Schweighöfer said: "Kind of. And it is the same universe, of course. It's more like a heist movie and it will be really entertaining. You will see heist stuff there that has never been seen before."
Army of Thieves will arrive on Netflix in Fall 2021.