Justice League, 300 and Man of Steel director Zack Snyder's upcoming sci-fi saga Rebel Moon is leading the exciting 2023 Netflix movie slate – or at least it was. Now, it's the most anticipated two movies on Netflix's 2023 slate. Well, actually there's four movies in total.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Snyder said that the film is now coming in two parts. The second part's release date "won't be long after" the first because "Netflix can do things that a traditional studio can't do as far as how close together the movies are released".
That's not all. After the second film is released, Snyder then intends to release different cuts of both parts. The first cut of part one of the film will be family-friendly, but the second will be much more explicit and strictly adults-only. "I think for fans of mine and people who are ready to take a deeper, harder dive, that’ll be fun for them," Snyder said.
Why is Rebel Moon two movies?
The original script for Rebel Moon would have made a three-hour movie, but Netflix reportedly didn't like that. With streaming, films do better when they're around the two-hour mark "even though you'll binge-watch a series of eight episodes," Snyder's producing partner and wife Deborah told the magazine.
You'll be shocked to discover that Netflix's request to maybe do some editing didn't go down well with the director. According to Deborah, "Zach said, 'if you want 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…'". Instead, he offered an alternative: "What if I give you two movies?"
And Snyder didn't finish there. If the two movie with four cuts gamble pays off, he intends to make a whole bunch of Rebel Moon movies, with the franchise potentially becoming as big – in terms of numbers of films, if not necessarily cultural impact – as the Star wars franchise. But while Snyder understands the comparisons, and even made them himself, he says that: "I do believe that our thing is really an entirely different experience."
You've got to admire the ambition. With Rebel Moon, Snyder is trying to do something that many observers reckon isn't possible – launch a Star Wars-scale movie franchise from a cold start and make it an intergalactic hit. And if Deborah Snyder's description is accurate, he might just pull it off: "It has a bit of Star Wars... it's a little bit like Lord of the Rings, a little bit Game of Thrones... it has a bit of everything."
And with a description like that, we're excited to see how the movies end up looking when they're released in December 2023. There hasn't been much footage since the first look at Zac Snyder's sci-fi epic Rebel Moon was released in February, but the sneak peek we've since seen in Netflix's 2023 movie preview (see below) has us excited to watch it on the world's best streaming service.
