Before filmmaker Zack Snyder became known for gloomy adaptations of comic books, he first made his name with a remake of the 1978 horror classic Dawn of the Dead. Now, Snyder is returning to his roots with the upcoming film Army of the Dead. In an interview, actor Garret Dillahunt explained why he is excited to be a part of Army of the Dead, which will explore "different ideas" regarding the zombie genre.

"It's real different. I'm excited to see it too. To have different ideas about zombies, which is refreshing, I think, in a lot of ways. And I know I have to keep this so vague. I'm sorry. I didn't know one of the things coming out now. Sometime next year. But they strayed away from a lot of normal zombie canon, that for some reason, everyone adheres to. And you're like, 'Maybe they don't have to be that way. What if they were this way? Oh, that's a nice wrinkle.' Zombies are scary. I'll tell you that. Zombies are really fast and scary."

The idea of zombies being fast and agile as opposed to slow and shambling has already been explored in Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, and it seems Army of the Dead will be making even more changes to zombie mythology. Zack Snyder has described his new movie as a spiritual successor to Dawn of the Dead, which will see a group of mercenaries attempting to loot a casino after a zombie outbreak sweeps the planet.

Netflix is betting big on the movie, with an anime series and prequel feature set to turn the film into a franchise. Meanwhile, Snyder's most highly-anticipated upcoming offering will be coming to a rival streaming channel in 2021, when Zack Snyder's Justice League finally debuts on HBO Max.

After decades of being relegated to the backdrop of the modern horror genre landscape, zombies have seen something of a resurgence in recent times. Apart from the popularity of The Walking Dead, movies like Zombieland and World War Z have also explored the grim reality of a world beset by brain-eating monsters, often a product of a foreign, highly communicable disease that infects entire communities at a time.

In 2020, such a disease is not only possible but the actual grim reality for the entire world. As such, entertainment analysts are speculating that future zombie movies that are made in a post-COVID world will have to change their internal mythology so as not to upset audiences by hitting too close to reality. It will be interesting to see if Army of the Dead will shy away from addressing the realities of a global health emergency as the world has experienced first-hand in 2020.

Based on a story by Zack Snyder and a screenplay from Joby Harold, Army of the Dead features Dave Bautista, Garret Dillahunt, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Raul Castillo, Tig Notaro, Theo Rossi, and Ana de la Reguera. The film does not yet have a release date. This news arrives from ComicBook.com.