You Won't Believe Who Helped Create Army Of The Dead's Zombie Tiger
In Zack Snyder's "Army of the Dead," the U.S. government took "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" to heart when it became ground zero for a zombie outbreak. Unwilling to let the shame of Vegas escape into the rest of the country, they quarantined the city. But now, Dave Bautista, playing the mercenary Scott Ward, is leading an epic heist to retrieve a fat stack of cash in a casino vault before the city is nuked.
It's a perfect setting for a hilarious genre romp, rife with zombified Elvis impersonators and every other oddity only found in Vegas. But the true cherry on top is the zombie tiger: a snarling, mangy beast that made the film's trailer unforgettable. As a new clip shows, her name is Valentine, and she's here to play.
However, while she's busy ruling over her domain now — as apocalyptic and miserable as it is — she didn't come from nowhere. While most of the movie was shot in New Mexico and Atlantic City, some of the crew took a trip to Florida to bring this tiger back to life.
The VFX team found help in Tiger King's Carole Baskin
While initially, VFX supervisor Marcus Taormina looked to Siegfried & Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat for a tiger model straight out of Vegas, their old cats didn't have the energy needed for the roaring undead queen of the urban jungle. He looked around for another big cat to observe and found his model in Sapphire, a tiger at Big Cat Rescue in Florida.
If that name sounds familiar, it's because that's Carole Baskin's tiger sanctuary — made famous from Netflix's hit series "Tiger King" and the catchy TikTok song about her feeding her husband to tigers. According to Variety, Baskin had just finished filming "Tiger King," the docuseries had yet to debut on Netflix, and the "Army of the Dead" crew didn't have any idea who she was. She was simply one of the few people willing to let them into her sanctuary to film a tiger up close.
"Carole was very supportive, saying we were doing the right thing and correctly because they didn't want to put those cats in those performances," Taormina told Variety. He was surprised to see her on his TV some months later.
Carole Baskin may think "Tiger King" missed the mark, but the real question is what does she think of Valentine? Well, at least no tigers were hurt making this movie.