Zack Snyder Introduces The Children Of The Revolution In Netflix's Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child Of Fire Trailer

Director Zack Snyder gets some mockery for his rather on-the-nose needle drops in movies — from "Down with the Sickness" in "Dawn of the Dead" to The Cranberrys' "Zombie" in his most recent zombie movie, "Army of the Dead" — but it helps that every needle drop is an absolute banger. Case in point: the new trailer for "Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire" serenades the stirrings of a space revolution with T. Rex's "Children of the Revolution."

Originally conceived as a "Star Wars" project, Snyder's epic space opera soon became its own thing when Lucasfilm made it clear that the R-rated action he wanted was a "non-starter." And so "Rebel Moon" became an original story, albeit influenced by "Star Wars" and, perhaps even more so, by "Gladiator" (the first trailer had an homage to the famous hand-in-the-wheat-field shot, and "Gladiator" cast member Djimon Hounsou is among Snyder's latest ragtag crew of fighters). 

Check out the new trailer for "Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire" above, and the official synopsis below:

When a peaceful settlement on a moon in the furthest reaches of the universe finds itself threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius, Kora (Sofia Boutella), a mysterious stranger living among the villagers, becomes their best hope for survival. Tasked with finding trained fighters who will unite with her in making an impossible stand against the Motherworld, Kora assembles a small band of warriors — outsiders, insurgents, peasants and orphans of war from different worlds who share a common need for redemption and revenge. As the shadow of an entire Realm bears down on the unlikeliest of moons, a new army of heroes is formed.

I love it when a gang comes together

Between "Dawn of the Dead," "Watchmen," and "Justice League," you might think that Zack Snyder really, really loves getting groups of characters together. But in a recent Total Film interview, he admitted that it's more of a love-hate relationship. "I'm not a huge fan of ensemble films, and yet I do it every time!" the filmmaker lamented. "There's something wrong with me where I'm like, 'I have to get a team together, and get them to do a thing!' I'm like, 'Goddammit. Why? Every f***ing time, I've got to put a team together.'"

And sure enough, "A Child of Fire" is a putting-a-team-together movie, which will conclude (presumably) with the assembled team kicking ass in the second half of the story, "The Scargiver." The two films were shot back-to-back and will release just a few months apart. Co-writer Kurt Johnstad told Total Film that while the two-part structure did originate from the problem of the script simply being too long ("At one point, the 'one movie' was 200-plus pages!"), this isn't just a really long interval for one very long movie. 

"It was decided the story would be split over two films in order to preserve crucial character and mythology detail, but no one wanted it to feel like a single movie with a cliffhanger crowbarred into the middle," said Johnstad. His co-writer Shay Hatten backed this, saying, "We worked to divide them to make sure they each felt like their own proper experience. So it is one macro story being told, but they both have their own flavor."

Sci-fi fans can judge for themselves when "Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire" hits Netflix on December 22, 2023, followed by "Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver" on April 19, 2024.