Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon Was Always Designed With A Sequel In Mind
Director Zack Snyder is a man of many words — or, at least, a filmmaker who tends to err on the side of longer runtimes. As someone who required director's cuts to tell both "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" and "Justice League" to completion without compromise (and who recently made waves for talking up a potential longer cut of the divisive "Sucker Punch," which he's previously talked about before), fans shouldn't have been surprised to hear that his next original story would end up requiring more than one movie to tell.
"Rebel Moon," Snyder's epic space opera that is already confirmed for an R-rated extended cut, has all the makings of a bona fide franchise-starter. We knew that the film had ended up lengthy enough that it required the decision to be split into two separate installments, largely because Netflix's internal metrics strongly suggest that viewers tune out of any movie longer than 120 minutes. But what we didn't realize was that Snyder had already set up a natural way for the story to continue, as he told /Film on a set visit to the production of "Rebel Moon." The story follows a peaceful colony and a ragtag group of rebels facing off against the relentless forces of the Imperium, the army of that universe's all-powerful empire. In order to truly sell us on the stakes, however, Snyder designed the film with a sequel in mind.
"It is a movie that even in its concept would beg for a follow-up, regardless of whether you made one, only because the empire is gigantic," he said. "The Imperium is ridiculously huge, and you blow up one ship and they're not going to be happy about it. It's not like, 'They'll never come back now. Yay!'"
'They have to bring the fight to them'
While it almost seems like Zack Snyder spoiled the ending to his highly-anticipated next film, we're going to go out on a limb here and say the journey is just as important as the specific plot mechanics that factor into the third-act battle. In other words, fans shouldn't come into "Rebel Moon" anticipating something as neat-and-tidy as its inspiration: i.e. the Death Star blowing up at in the climax of "Star Wars" and everybody getting their medals to bring the self-contained story to a satisfying end. More to the point, Snyder went on to describe how the seeds for a sequel meant putting the bad guys back on their heels. According to the director, this dovetails a cut-and-dried morality play featuring some very obvious protagonists and antagonists:
"So at the end of the movie, the way we designed it is that they are on the offensive at the end. They have to bring the fight to them, because otherwise they can't wait. So I think that, to me, is what it's about. And it's also really clear with the morality — who's good and who's bad. We don't do a lot of, 'Oh, the Imperium, they're just misunderstood. As far as they're concerned, they're the good guys.' It's not really like that."
That sounds ... surprising. Personally, I'm dying to find out how Snyder fans who gravitated towards the murky morals of "Batman v Superman" or his adaptation of "Watchmen" will react to a Snyder script with far fewer shades of grey to it. In fact, this sounds more and more like the exact opposite of his approach to superheroes. Either way, expect "Rebel Moon" to fire up the discourse engines when it debuts on Netflix on December 22, 2023.