Army of the Dead, an upcoming heist movie from Zack Snyder where the survivors of a zombie apocalypse plan to rob a Las Vegas casino, revealed a very terrifying enemy in its trailer. But, did you know that this zombie tiger belongs to none other than Carole Baskin?
If the name is ringing a bell, it's because she was one of the animal rights activists featured in Tiger King, the true crime documentary series that was released on Netflix at the start of 2020. In a virtual panel held during Justice Con, producer Deborah Snyder said that the visual effects team wanted to be as accurate as possible when it came to modelling and animating the zombie tiger. As a result, they inquired at numerous animal sanctuaries before settling on one of the big cats owned by Baskin, though these conversations took place before the release of Tiger King and so ended up being a coincidental link between two Netflix properties. Really though, the zombie tiger is one wild addition to the apocalypse, so see if you can spot it in the trailer below.
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Snyder accordingly stated that the team had no idea about the rift between Baskin and Joe Exotic, even after spending a week at the sanctuary to observe the animal and transform it into Valentine the zombie tiger. "At least they got out of there alive," joked Snyder. Dave Bautista is leading the movie, along with Ella Purnell, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, Hiroyuki Sanada, Matthias Schweighöfer, Omari Hardwick, Huma Qureshi, Tig Notaro, Nora Arnezeder, Raúl Castillo, and Garret Dillahunt. However, it won't be another zombie movie to trudge through. The undead are not shambling, slathering masses to mow down - they're organised, and they're not letting that vault of cash disappear without a fight.
"This was the most gratifying experience making this movie. This is the movie," said Zack Snyder in a press conference earlier this month. "There are no other cuts of the movie. I didn't have to fight them. It was the opposite. This is the director's cut, and you're going to see it first. You don't have to see the bastardized version first, there's just the awesome version." Army of the Dead comes to Netflix and a handful of theatres on May 21st.Featured Image Credit: Netflix