Zack Snyder Says R-Rated ‘Rebel Moon’ Hits Summer 2024; Netflix Called 200 Page Script “Crazy” At First

OK, so we just detailed Zack Snyder talking about pitching Lucasfilm an R-rated “Star Wars” space opera movie. They eventually turned it down, and he turned that idea into “Rebel Moon,” which is on Netflix now, with a sequel, “Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver,” arriving on the streaming service in April. But it’s Zack Snyder, so there is always more, something he would probably attest to himself.

First off, as most of us already know, Snyder was able to make two different versions of the film, the “Rebel Moon” version that hit theaters and Netflix in December and an R-rated version that’s coming out eventually. Now we have a date.

READ MORE: Zack Snyder Recalls ‘Rebel Moon’ Pitch To Lucasfilm:” I’m Gonna Fix ‘Star Wars’ Cause They Had Gone Astray”

In the DGA Director’s Cut podcast about “Rebel Moon” with director Louis Leterrier as the guest filmmaking moderator, Snyder revealed that the R-rated “Rebel Moon” is coming out this summer. No month or date, but at least we have a time frame. The story of Snyder getting to make two versions of the film is pretty fascinating, though. And it basically starts with Netflix in disbelief about what he wanted to make and saying, “No, we won’t make that, but…” offering solutions for them to both get what they wanted. For Netflix, that was a PG-13 movie in under two hours (which is what’s on Netflix now). For Snyder, that was an R-rated movie, but because he had a 200-page script, he had to expand it into two films in order for “Rebel Moon” to clock no more than the two-hour mark (technically, it’s 2 hours and 14 minutes, but close enough).

As Snyder tells it, “Rebel Moon” began when “Army Of The Dead” was finished. Netflix said, so what’s next? Do you want to do a sequel? And he said, yes, “but I have this other idea, and I don’t know if you guys are into it or not, but it’s a space opera, and it’s kinda like ‘Seven Samurai’ in space, but it’s gotta be Rated R! There’s no way around that,” he recalled in his pitch meeting.

READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2024

“But they were like, OK, but what if it wasn’t Rated-R?” he said with a laugh, remembering their response. Snyder then detailed eventually dropping a 200-page R-rated script on Netflix, and it wasn’t something they wanted to make.

“They read the script. Obviously, it was an R-rated script, it was 200 pages the first time [they read it], and they were like, ‘you weren’t kidding!’ when I handed them this phone book of the script,” he recalled. “And they said, ‘200 page script, huh? Obviously, we’re not making a script into a movie, especially not this crazy, R-rated [thing]. You basically made a live-action ‘Heavy Metal’ movie, and everyone’s like naked, this is crazy.’”

So the streamer’s initial reaction was no way, but they quickly came up with the alternative, which was allowing him to shoot and make two versions.

“But Netflix was really cool; I had just finished ‘Justice League,’ I had that experience, my ‘BVS’ experience, ‘Watchmen,’ I had this career for whatever reason, where I had a director’s cut of every movie,” he continued.

Snyder went on to explain that Ridley Scott was a big influence, and he had always had director’s cuts plus the home video market of DVD always allowed him to make them because the studios definitely wanted a second chance at making more money with a second unique product.

“I don’t encourage it 100% as a career path,” Snyder said of making movies one way and then making movies the way he really wants to with an R-rated director’s cut, but that, “Except for me, it’s worked from an artistic standpoint.”

Snyder explained that most of his director’s cuts were in reaction to the theatrical cut, and what makes this R-rated cut much different is that Netflix bought it and suggested it as an alternative from the beginning.

“What Netflix has done, and they said to me from the beginning— and I’ve never had this experience—‘Why don’t we give you some extra money and set scenes aside and allow you to have the director’s cut run parallel and not be a reaction,’” he explained. “Because all my other director’s cuts are me just reacting to the studio like getting noted and then freaking out and then running to home video to save me.”

“And so that’s going to be later on. In the summer, you’ll get to see what I [originally] pitched them basically,” he said with a laugh. “And then you’ll get to pretend to be the studio executive and go, ‘Oh geez, I see what they mean. So that’s the full odyssey.”

Snyder called his original R-rated 200-page script, the one he made, as “problematic,” but that’s unclear if it’s because of content or length or both.

“The 200-page script that was also problematic—there was a conversation about, ‘should we just cut it?’ Because the studio wanted a two-hour movie. I understand it; it makes sense in some way. I’ve been pressured by every studio I’ve ever worked for my entire career to make movies that are two hours long. This is the first time I actually did it,” he explained.

“So the question was how to make the 200-page script two hours, that seems problematic, and it was,” he added. Snyder went off on a long tangent and didn’t really circle back, but clearly, they fixed that issue by one, going with a much longer R-rated version, and two, by splitting the PG-13 movie into two versions. Snyder says they basically “cut the 200-page script and cut it in half, and we made the final [action scene in ‘Part One’] a little bigger.”

And note, in the recent past, over the break, Snyder has said the R-rated “Rebel Moon” will clock in around three hours (he’s also said it’s practically a different film).

“The director’s cut is close to an hour of extra content, so I think it’s a legitimate extended universe version,” he told Tudum in late December. “You really get to see a lot. It’s just more painted-in all the way… with Netflix; we shot scenes just for the director’s cut. So in that way, it’s really a revelation because it gives that second kick at the can for big fans, like a real discovery that they would not [otherwise] get.”