Army of the Dead Easter egg hints at Dawn of the Dead connection

Dawn of the Dead and Army of the Dead
(Image credit: Universal Studios/Netflix)

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.

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.

Molly Edwards
Senior Entertainment Writer

I'm a Senior Entertainment Writer here at 12DOVE, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.