Major spoilers are ahead. If you’ve watched all two hours and 30 minutes of Zack Snyder’s zombie-heist movie, Army of the Dead, you know that there isn’t a happy ending for anyone — even those who make it out of Las Vegas alive. But just because there is no clear-cut resolution for the two surviving characters — Ella Purnell’s Kate Ward and Omari Hardwick’s Vanderohe —doesn’t mean that Snyder isn’t already cooking up more ways for zombies to attack in the future. And, in the past: Snyder is working on a prequel.
Army of the Dead follows Dave Bautista’s Scott Ward and a team he’s put together to try and empty the vault of a Las Vegas casino. This is certainly a story we’ve seen before, but just this time there are zombies crawling all over Vegas and the casino boss is actually paying them to pull off a heist. Though Ward and a few surviving members of his team make it into the casino vault and actually manage to grab some of the money, the zombies (and also a giant nuke heading right for Vegas to wipe out the zombies) end up winning out. By the end of Army of the Dead, the only person who makes it out alive is his daughter, Kate. At least, that's what Kate thinks.
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Unbeknownst to everyone, Vanderohe has been trapped in the casino vault this entire time and, as such, managed to survive the nuclear blast. If you'll recall, midway through the movie, as the zombies are coming at them too hard and fast, the group’s safecracker, Ludwig (Matthias Schweighöfer), made the decision to sacrifice himself and lock Vanderohe in the vault. It’s a very dramatic slow-motion scene leaving viewers to think this is actually the end of Vanderohe, too. So it’s quite a surprise when in the coda of the movie he climbs out of the vault, with money in hand, and starts heading back to civilization.
With the cash, Vanderohe charters a plane to Mexico and it certainly seems like he’s escaped the horrors he left behind in Vegas. But then he gets a little woozy, and realizes that somewhere along the way he was bit; it’s only a matter of time before turns into a zombie and the plane lands in Mexico. Without a doubt, this scene sets up a sequel that could continue building the world Snyder has created here.
During a Netflix Q&A following the trailer’s initial release, Snyder was asked about the possibility of a sequel, answering, “Well, absolutely...If it were possible, or if anyone was interested in it to continue the adventures of this world will be fun.” Bear in mind, this was before the movie was out and audience learned the fates of every single character, so that doesn't exactly confirm a zombie adventure down in Mexico.
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But there is one continuation that's been confirmed: for those who've become super attached to the likes of Ward, Maria, Ludwig, and Marianne, Netflix is making an Army of the Dead anime series, called Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas. Remember how the movie opens showing them all together, fighting zombies? Think more of that, but done via anime. This new series will explore what happens before they head back in to try and reach the casino vault.
Additionally, there’s going to be a straight prequel about Ludwig’s safecracking days called Army of Thieves, which is actually directed by Schweighöfer. Surprisingly, that movie’s already done, which hopefully means the wait won’t be too long before we see it. While we wait for a release date, Army of Thieves does already have a Netflix page that will have to tide us over with this logline: “a mysterious woman recruits bank teller Dieter to assist in a heist of impossible-to-crack safes across Europe.”
That's nice and all, but it fails to answer one important question: will there be zombies?