Netflix and Zack Snyder were so confident in the success of Army of the Dead that the prequel wasn’t even officially announced until it had already wrapped shooting. Army of Thieves landed on Netflix yesterday, and you can bet it’ll be sitting pretty at the top of the most-watched list by the end of the day.
Snyder may have cracked the story with Army of the Dead‘s Shay Hatten and produced through his Stone Quarry banner, but he was more than happy to hand the directorial reins over to leading man Matthias Schweighöfer, who delivers a light and breezy heist thriller with romantic comedy elements.
In a new interview with ComicBook, star Nathalie Emmanuel explained why Snyder wasn’t as heavily involved in the production as initially planned, with the pandemic unsurprisingly being the main cause.
“He couldn’t get out there. We had very much felt Zack and Deborah Snyder’s presence and input and they were constantly giving us encouragement and notes from wherever they were shooting, because they had to do additional photography on Army of the Dead. We were in Prague, and they were wherever they were and it was really, it was such a shame that we couldn’t be there, that they couldn’t be there with us, but we very much felt their kind of presence and energy. I actually met them for the first time on Zoom, after we’d finished.”
Army of Thieves shot in the Czech Republic and Germany between September and December of last year, when travel restrictions were still in place around the world. That would have meant Snyder having to quarantine for two weeks either side of any potential trip to the set, so it made more sense for him to keep watch from afar and place an increased level of trust in his cast and crew, which turned out to be well-warranted.