Army of the Dead director Zack Snyder admitted that he knew the zombie tiger that appears in the zombie heist film's first trailer was going to be a scene-stealer.
"I guess we knew, in a way, Valentine was gonna be a star," Snyder revealed to Beyond the Trailer, while also sharing the tiger's name. "It was me [who came up with the zombie tiger]. I think we had a zombie tiger in there for a long time, I think it was one of those early ideas."
The director added that bringing a tiger into the mix "just makes sense if you're gonna do Vegas."
During the same conversation, Snyder also detailed the purpose of the zombie hierarchy featured in Army of the Dead, which includes both "Alphas" and "Shamblers" and includes both humans and animals that been turned into the living dead.
"Always in this concept, it was this idea that we would evolve the zombies or there would be a hierarchy, there would be some sort of [organization]," Snyder explained. "You'll learn in the movie the 'why’ of it because it's very specific about why certain zombies are 'Shamblers,' and certain zombies are 'Alphas,' it's very particular."
He continued, "But the Alphas, I sort of think of them like wolves or pack animals that can work as a team. Zeus [Richard Cetrone] is their main guy, and the Zombie Queen [Athena Perample] of course, they have this kind of primitive way of communicating. I'm not even sure how it works, but it's very much from the animal kingdom. They're one with nature if you will."
The official synopsis for Army of the Dead reads,
ARMY OF THE DEAD takes place following a zombie outbreak that has left Las Vegas in ruins and walled off from the rest of the world. When Scott Ward (Dave Bautista), a former zombie war hero who’s now flipping burgers on the outskirts of the town he now calls home, is approached by casino boss Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada), it’s with the ultimate proposition: break into the zombie-infested quarantine zone to retrieve $200 million sitting in a vault beneath the strip before the city is nuked by the government in 32 hours. With little left to lose, Ward takes on the challenge, assembling a ragtag team of experts for the heist. With a ticking clock, a notoriously impenetrable vault, and a smarter, faster horde of Alpha zombies closing in, only one thing's for certain in the greatest heist ever attempted: survivors take all.
Directed and co-written by Zack Snyder, Army of the Dead stars Dave Bautista, Garret Dillahunt, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Raul Castillo, Tig Notaro, Theo Rossi and Ana de la Reguera. The film arrives on Netflix on May 21.
Source: Beyond the Trailer