Army of Thieves dropped on Netflix a few hours ago, and it takes the Army of the Dead franchise forward… or technically backward if you consider that it is a prequel.
Either way, it marks another chapter for Zack Snyder’s newest franchise, the one he dedicated his time to after saying goodbye to the DCEU Snyderverse.
However, Snyder took a different approach for this prequel film and let Matthias Schweighöfer take the directing reins instead.
Schweighöfer also portrays Ludwig Dieter in the two films, and Snyder recently explained why he decided the actor was the right man for this position.
While talking to CinemaBlend, Snyder explained why he decided to sit this one out and put his faith in Schweighöfer,
Well, you know what it was, for me, just seeing him every day, doing the work and being amazing on set, really just kind of crushing. Not only that part, but also the work ethic and being funny. We were a big ensemble cast, and he was always the first one there, knew his lines, knew everything.
Like really listening to the blocking and everything. And I was just like, ‘This guy is working hard. He knows what’s up.’ It just made sense to me to say, ‘Ok, you know this character better than anyone. You should run this show.’
Zack Snyder
Dieter is Snyder’s favorite character among the lot, so it only made sense for his prequel story to be told by the actor himself.
Working as an actor and director in the German entertainment industry, Schweighöfer was already equipped with the skills needed to make the film,
We knew we wanted to make a prequel, and when we were shooting Army of the Dead, I had been watching Matthias every day and thought, ‘Holy shit, this guy’s amazing.’
And then I had this idea that maybe we could do something like The Italian Job, kind of a romantic comedy, something genre-busting.
Zack Snyder
Army of Thieves follows Dieter and a group of con-men around Europe as they try to crack open impossible safes, all the while a zombie apocalypse encroaching in the nearby future.
In another interview with Inverse, when asked what it was like handing it off to another director, Snyder said,
Our original idea for those movies was that we were going to do these little spinoff movies in different markets, different foreign language films. They were supposed to be all in German. And these little movies were going to all feed into Army of the Dead.
Then, this movie, I don’t want to say it got gigantic, but it grew to the scale that it needed to grow to. We just started to do more of it in English. So it just made sense, from the beginning, that it be Matthias directing. I’ve had a lot of fun watching that.
Zack Snyder
Army of Thieves is now available for streaming on Netflix.
About Army of Thieves
Army of Thieves is an upcoming Netflix movie which serves as a prequel to Zack Snyder’s 2021 popular zombie apocalypse movie, Army of the Dead.
Matthias Schweighöfer acts as the lead character, Dieter, and is also the director of the movie. Zack Snyder is a part of the movie as its writer and executive producer.
The movie expands Snyder’s zombie franchise, and stars Nathalie Emmanuel, Ruby O. Fee, Stuart Martin, Guz Khan, Jonathan Cohen and Noémie Nakai.
Set during the near start of the apocalypse, the movie is revealed to have lesser zombies and more of heist. It focuses on Ludwig Dieter’s backstory as a famous safe-cracker and his team, which embarks on a heist at the initial stages of the zombie attack.
No Comments on Why Zack Snyder Let Matthias Schweighöfer Direct Army Of Thieves