Army of the Dead Hid a Major Prequel Easter Egg in Plain Sight

Army of the Dead had an Army of Thieves Easter egg long before audiences would have even know what it meant. While Zack Snyder wrapped principal photography on Army of the Dead nearly a year before Army of Thieves was announced, plans were clearly in the works because there was already an obvious Easter egg to one of Army of Thieves’ main characters, long before anyone watching knew anything about Dieter’s backstory.

Zack Snyder’s is building an Army of the Dead shared universe on Netflix, all starting with his first Vegas zombie heist movie. Ludwig Dieter actor, Matthias Schweighöfer, is directing the Army of Thieves prequel about his character, the Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas anime prequel series is coming soon, and Army of the Dead 2 has also been announced. With zombies, aliens, mythical safes, and time loop teases, it’s not clear where the franchise is going yet, especially with the drastically different tones of the first two movies, but it’s clear there’s at least a loose plan for where the series could go next.

The Army of the Dead Easter egg happens before Dietereven appears on screen for the first time as Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) and Maria Cruz (Ana de la Reguera) approach Dieter’s locksmith shop, where a big sign on the roof says “Gwendoline’s Safe & Lock Co.” Gwendoline is the name of Nathalie Emmanuel’s character in Army of Thieves, and the trailers show Dieter and her are romantically involved on some level, so, while it’s a cool nod to her character, there’s also a hint of tragedy, as it suggests their romance may have been cut short.

The actual location where the scene was shot in Albuquerque, NM is called “Sandia Safe & Lock Co.”, and the sign and logo are identical other than Gwendoline name being swapped in, so it’s clearly a pre-planned Easter egg, although it would also have been a cool nod to the actual locksmith shop if Gwendoline’s name was just a circumstantial result of using a real-world location with that name and Snyder and Army of Thieves co-writer Shay Hatten had decided to turn it into a retroactive reference to someone in Dieter’s former life.

While this could be seen as a suggestion Gwendoline doesn’t survive the events of Army of Thieves, the fact that the shop is in such close proximity to the fourth and final safe in Hans Wagner’s series of impenetrable safes inspired by the Ring cycle opera of Richard Wagner, while Army of Thieves is about Gwendoling recruiting Dieter to crack the first three seems too coincidental to be an accident. Dieter, the only person in the world to have cracked the other three safes in Europe, setting up a locksmith shop named after the person who hired him to crack the Wagner safes and having the Las Vengeance team approach him to help crack the Götterdämmerung is an extreme enough coincidence to make viewers question whether even more scheming was afoot than Dieter let on, which also leaves open the chance Army of Thieves isn’t the last time Gwendoline will appear.

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Stephen M. Colbert
(628 Articles Published)

Stephen has been writing for the site since 2016 and enjoys all manner of movies and TV, especially when it gives reason to obsess over minor irrelevant continuity minutiae.

Stephen has been infatuated with movie magic on screen and off since wearing out his VHS copy of The Making of Star Wars when he was 7. This passion continues in his work as a film journalist, whether it’s hunting down breadcrumbs about the Snyder Cut, breaking down box office trends, or obsessing over Rotten Tomatoes data, Stephen lives in the minutiae, as listeners of his podcast, Batman v Superman: By the Minute (with fellow-Screen Rant editor Andrew Dyce) know all too well.

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When he’s not writing on the site, Stephen can be found obsessing over vintage camera lenses, chasing his tiny children around, or getting himself into trouble on Twitter @smcolbert.

Yes, that’s his real name.

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