Army of the Dead includes an Easter egg that might hint at a Dawn of the Dead connection.
Though the action of Army of the Dead takes place in Las Vegas, a Twitter user has spotted that, at one point in the movie, a headline can be seen talking of an undead outbreak in Milwaukee that took place in 2004. Snyder's first go at the zombie genre, Dawn of the Dead, is set in this city, and was released back in 2004.
Yo Zack Snyder said that his first Zombie venture "Dawn Of The Dead" is not related to "Army Of The Dead", it's not a direct sequel but this news article in the movie says otherwise."New Information Released About '04 Zombie Outbreak In Milwaukee"Cool Easter Egg or What? pic.twitter.com/XQp2uXq3ahMay 23, 2021
This is probably more of a fun Easter egg for the particularly keen-eyed to spot than a direct link, but it's still interesting. Dawn of the Dead's zombies were considerably different to those seen in Army of the Dead – the former's were terrifyingly fast-moving but still pretty mindless, while the latter features "shamblers" that lurch along slowly, as well as "Alphas" who are very intelligent, strong, and fast.
Snyder himself has also said Army of the Dead was never intended to be a sequel to his directorial debut. "I developed it right after Dawn, but not as a sequel," he told Screen Rant. "I wanted to do this other evolution in it of the zombies, so I needed another trope. I needed another origin story in order to make this other thing work, so I was like, 'Okay, it can live in its own universe.'"
The connection between the two undead movies is far from the only Easter egg to be spotted in Army of the Dead, though. Snyder himself has a brief – and accidental – cameo in the movie, and the much-discussed Snyder Cut also features in the background of a scene.
Army of the Dead is streaming on Netflix now, and if you're all caught up on its two and a half hours of zombie slaying, you can check out the best Netflix movies to watch, and see our ranking of the best Zack Snyder movies.
