Zack Snyder’s space adventure film Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire has set a one-week theatrical run ahead of its debut on Netflix. The film will be shown exclusively on 70mm from December 15th to 21st in the following locations: Los Angeles (Egyptian Theatre), New York City (Paris Theatre), Toronto (TIFF Bell Lightbox) and London (Prince Charles Cinema). Netflix owns the Paris Theater and the Egyptian Theater. The first “Rebel Moon” film will stream on Netflix on December 22nd.
Sofia Boutella, Ed Skrein, Cleopatra Coleman and Cary Elwes star in Snyder’s latest film, which follows an enigmatic young woman living in a peaceful colony on the edge of the galaxy. She is tasked with finding warriors who can repel an impending invasion by a tyrannical despot.
Snyder recently said that “Rebel Moon” and his last film, the Netflix zombie action film “Army of the Dead,” are part of the same universe.
“‘Army of the Dead’ has a pretty extensive mythology that never made it into the film,” he told Total Film. “There’s actually a character from ‘Rebel Moon’ in the animated series ‘Army of the Dead’ that we never made.”
Snyder originally conceived “Rebel Moon” as a “Star Wars” film inspired by “Seven Samurai,” which he pitched to Lucasfilm shortly after the studio was acquired by Disney in 2012 for $4.05 billion. The director wanted to create original characters and pushed for an R-rated script, which ultimately led to “Rebel Moon” becoming a standalone film outside of the “Star Wars” franchise.
The director wrote the project as a single film, but Netflix was reluctant to take it on because the script was 172 pages. At that length, “Rebel Moon” would have had a running time of around three hours. The two parties agreed to split the film in half, with the second “Rebel Moon” film set to be released next year.
Snyder is also working on two separate cuts of each “Rebel Moon” film. One cut is a film that “everyone can enjoy and watch,” while the other is more explicit and intended exclusively for adults. “I think for fans of mine and people who are willing to dive deeper and harder, this will be fun,” Snyder told Vanity Fair earlier this year. He later revealed on the Netflix series “Tudum” that the director’s cuts will include nearly 60 minutes of additional footage.
“The director’s cut includes almost an hour of additional content, so I think it’s a legitimate extended universe version,” Snyder said. “You really get to see a lot. It’s just more painted on throughout. The directors [cut] is a deep acclimatization course that I have been known to take throughout my career. I don’t know how I got into this director’s cut thing, but what I can say is that for me in the past, director’s cuts were always something I had to fight for and no one wanted them. It was this bastard child that I always tried to put together because they felt like there was a deeper version. And with Netflix we shot scenes just for the director’s cut. In that respect it is really a revelation because it gives the big fans a second kick in the can.”
The second “Rebel Moon” film, titled “The Scargiver,” will be released on April 19, 2024.