‘Rebel Moon’: Zack Snyder Teases 2 Versions Of His New Sci-Fi Film With Separate Cuts Aimed At General Audiences & Adults Only

After a bit of a rough time at the end of his run of Warner Bros./DC films, it appears Zack Snyder has settled in quite nicely over at Netflix with a deal that allows the filmmaker the freedom to make, basically, whatever he wants. That freedom includes the option of turning his new sci-fi epic, “Rebel Moon,” into a two-part film series. It also allows him to make two separate cuts of two films, apparently.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, in a long, detailed profile about the creation of his new films (plural), Zack Snyder and his wife/producing partner, Deborah Snyder, talked about the way that “Rebel Moon” turned from a single sci-fi epic into a two-part film series with separate cuts for general audiences and adults, respectively. 

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Without getting much into the plot specifics, “Rebel Moon” started as a proposed “Star Wars” spinoff idea that Snyder pitched to Lucasfilm years ago. That was then turned into its own standalone franchise and revived at Netflix. The film(s) are said to follow a young woman on a distant planet who finds herself building a resistance force to fight the Mother World and its minions. Initially, the plan was to make one long epic film, but a discussion between Snyder and Netflix changed that completely. 

“Originally, the script was one movie, but it was in ‘Zack form,’” said Deborah Snyder. “It was 172 pages.” 

This would have meant that “Rebel Moon” would have been around three hours long. Not a terribly long film by today’s standards, but not the type of movie Netflix (and its algorithm) has found to work best. 

“[Netflix chairman Scott] Stuber was like, ‘On the service, under-two-hour movies really do better for some reason,’ even though you’ll binge-watch a series of eight episodes,” Deborah Snyder added. “Zack said, ‘If you ask me to make this less than two hours, I’m going to lose all the character. You won’t care about these people. It’s a character story about how people can change, and redemption, and what are you willing to fight for…’ So he said, ‘What if I give you two movies?’”

Now, if you’re a big fan of Snyder’s work, then you’ll probably be excited to know that Netflix is planning something special with the edit of “Rebel Moon” and its sequel. Instead of releasing a standard, general audiences cut of the film, the streamer is going to skip the pretense and give Snyder his Director’s Cut immediately. So, for both of the “Rebel Moon” films, there will be two cuts.

The first cut is one “that anyone can enjoy and watch,” Snyder explained. He added that the other cut will be aimed at adults and said, “I think for fans of mine and people who are ready to take a deeper, harder dive, that’ll be fun for them.”

The first “Rebel Moon” will debut on Netflix on December 22. The second film doesn’t yet have a release date, but Zack Snyder said it “won’t be long after. Netflix can do things that a traditional studio can’t do as far as how close together the movies are released.”

Meanwhile, Netflix has released official images from the movie, which you can see below.