Dave Bautista and his band of mercenaries are all geared up and ready for a heist in the latest image from director Zack Snyder's upcoming action flick Army of the Dead. Along with the newly released image from the movie, Snyder has been discussing the project, something that describes as being "my small movie."

"I've tried to get at it in a super- intimate, personal way. It's not made by committee. It's definitely a movie that's incredibly personal and singular."

The confirmation that Army of the Dead should come as a big plus to fans of the director, whose difficult experience making Justice League is now well-documented. But fear not, as Zack Snyder does not mean that Army of the Dead will be small in scale but rather in sensibility, with the Man of Steel director hoping to have crafted an intimate action outing, giving him the opportunity to create well-rounded characters and dig into what makes them tick.

Directed by Zack Snyder, from a script he wrote with Shay Hatten and Joby Harold, based on a story by Snyder, Army of the Dead is clearly a very personal project for the divisive movie-maker, and will follow Bautista along with an ensemble cast that includes Ella Purnell, Ana de la Reguera, Matthias Schweighöfer, Nora Arnezeder, Hiroyuki Sanada, Raúl Castillo, Michael Cassidy, Garret Dillahunt, and Omari Hardwick as a group of mercenaries who plot a heist on a Las Vegas casino during a zombie outbreak.

A lot of the character beats will reportedly come from the complicated central relationship between Dave Bautista's Scott Ward and Ella Purnell as his daughter Kate Ward. Of course, the father-and-daughter drama should not distract too much from the zombie action, with Snyder delving a little more into the well-explored zombie genre and looking to change the depiction of the living dead just a little.

"From the first conceptualizing of the movie, they were going to be these evolved zombies. We treat them kind of like wolves, sort of like a dog. They're not necessarily fully realized and talk or anything. But they can organize."

Snyder also described his zombies as "semi-conscious", with the ultimate goal to make audiences sympathize with the walking undead like they never have before. Zombies are some of the most depicted monsters in the horror genre, with Snyder no doubt hoping that, by tweaking the lore just a bit and throwing zombies of all sorts of shapes, sizes, and degrees of intelligence at Bautista and his crew, he can give Army of the Dead its own, unique approach of the iconic ghouls.

Army of the Dead is scheduled to debut on Netflix on May 21, 2021, with Netflix investing a lot of time and money into spawning a franchise. It has already been announced that a prequel movie, which began development in October 2020, is in the works with Matthias Schweighöfer set to direct and star. An anime-series titled Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas also in the pipeline, which will center around some of the characters from Army of the Dead during the early phases of the zombie outbreak. This comes to us courtesy of Games Radar.