While somewhat divisive, Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead is a streaming hit based on social media interactions. Whether you loved it or hated it, it seems that nearly everyone has seen it. While there is talk regarding a potential sequel, there are two prequels confirmed to hit the streaming platform at some point in the future - a live-action film focused on the film's German safecracker Ludwig Dieter and an anime prequel that recounts how Dave Bautista's "Ward" met most of his fellow mercenary cohorts.
Titled Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas, the TV anime series was developed by WB Animation alum Jay Oliva (Batman vs. Robin, Batman: Bad Blood) and has Snyder directing the first two episodes.
In addition to Bautista, Ella Purnell returns to voice Ward's daughter Kate. Tig Notaro will reprise her role as helicopter pilot Marianne Peters, along with Omari Hardwick's Vanderohe and Ana de la Reguera's Maria Cruz.
Newcomers include Joe Manganiello as Rose, Christian Slater as Torrance, Harry Lennix as Boorman, Vanessa Hudgens as Willow, Jena Malone as Zeta, Christina Wren as Nicole and Yetide Badaki as Queen Meeru.
Speaking to IndieWire, producer Deborah Snyder said Lost Vegas will dive deeper into the opening montage that saw Bautista and company conducting rescue missions.
"[Lost Vegas] is the backstory. You could come to it as an anime fan and not having seen ‘Army of the Dead,’ and then you want more."
"[Army of the Dead] takes place after the pandemic, they’ve contained the zombies to Vegas, but we don’t really talk about where it comes from. Where did this pathogen come from? How did this all happen? And we see our team and that they had been on these rescue missions. We see some flashbacks, what they were doing, but we don’t really know more, so the anime series is a great way to find out the origin of this.”
There's currently no release date for the anime prequel, however Netflix has teased that there is more news to come regarding the Army of the Dead franchise during its upcoming three-day #GeekedWeek livestream fan event in June.