JP Nunez
These days, most people know Zack Snyder as the original architect of the DCEU, but to us horror fans, he’ll always be associated with something that sports a bit more, shall we say, bite. His feature directorial debut was the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, and while that film has plenty of detractors, it’s also one of the better-received horror remakes in recent memory. This past year, Snyder returned to his undead roots with the fantastic Army of the Dead, and we’ve just learned what the sequel is going to be called: Planet of the Dead. The director revealed this in an interview with Inverse, where he said the following:
But the real adventure would be to see what happened to [Dieter] when that safe door closed. Did he get killed by Zeus or not? What happened? We don’t see him die on camera, and there’s still some time left. I won’t tell you what happens in Army of the Dead 2 — aka Planet of the Dead — but let’s just say that there’s a chance Dieter survives. And there’s a chance that brush with death would have caused him to want to find a jailed Gwendoline.
If you need a refresher, Dieter is the safe-cracker from Army of the Dead, the same one whose prequel movie Army of Thieves is hitting Netflix this Friday, October 29. His final scene in Army of the Dead seems to imply that he died, but we never actually see it happen, so as Snyder says here, he could very well return in Planet of the Dead. If you ask me, I think he almost certainly will.
For one, Army of the Dead doesn’t shy away from killing its characters on screen, so why would it treat Dieter’s demise differently if Zack Snyder and his crew didn’t have plans for his future? Secondly, and probably more importantly, I doubt that Snyder would even hint at the character’s return in Planet of the Dead if it wasn’t going to happen. I can almost imagine him winking at his interviewer when he said, “[T]here’s a chance Dieter survives,” so I think we can be pretty confident that the safe-cracking fan-favorite will in fact be back for the sequel.
And what will that sequel actually be about? At this point, we have no idea, but if you’ve seen Army of the Dead, you know that Planet of the Dead is a perfect title for its follow-up. And if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend that you do. It’s one of the best horror movies of 2021, so I’m super hyped for Planet of the Dead. We don’t know when the sequel is supposed to come out, but whenever it does, you can bet that it’s going to be one of the biggest (and probably best!) genre events of the year.
