Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver” does not come out until April 19, but early press for the film has already apparently begun. Snyder recently went on the Joe Rogan podcast to promote the film and its predecessor “Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire” and in a new interview, its star Sofia Boutella is opening up about how wounded and hurt she was about the critical lambasting that the first film received (read our review).
The first film received a bleak 21% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and even the audience metric, generally much more favorable from the lenient fans, sits at a poor 58%. Still, Boutella says all the unanimous and negative press around the movie really had a negative impact on her.
“I always thought that I was fully armed to take on those punches, and then I read the critics that came down on ‘Rebel Moon,’ and it really affected me,” Boutella told Vulture this week.
“I’m just gonna be honest about it. I feel like I’m carrying it for everybody [who] cared so much about this project, and that’s what affected me,” she continued, noting that her performance luckily went mostly unscathed. “Not the way I look. If anything, I’ve been pretty lucky and people like my work in it, but the movie was criticized.”
Boutella said while all the disparagement of the movie hurt, she’s still proud of the film and would “defend” it on end, while indicating she was upset on behalf of Snyder and all the crewmembers who put hard work into the movie.
“It really affected me for all of those who put so much heart, tears, and sweat into this project. It’s hard to see something being demolished to that extent,” she explained. “I’m proud to have been part of it, and if there is no more ‘Rebel Moon,’ it will be a very important part of my life that I will defend forever.”
As for Snyder’s two-part R-rated “Rebel Moon” movies, which he recently said would be six hours long, although in the past he’s given a vague-ish summer release date, in the aforementioned Joe Rogan podcast interview, the filmmaker said August is now the target date.
As for more “Rebel Moon” beyond the two films, Snyder has suggested, as he usually does, that the possibility for more expansion in this universe is real. That said, it’ll really depend on how ‘The Scargiver’ performs. And if Part One is any indication of what critics and audiences thought, well, Snyder at least has his “Army Of The Dead” franchise already set up at Netflix and potentially more “300” to keep himself busy with, too.
