At this point, most people are aware that Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon began life as a Star Wars spin-off indebted to Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, before Disney and Lucasfilm decided against the idea of handing the filmmaker the keys to the kingdom.
To be fair, Snyder wasn’t too interested in shoehorning his ideas into a pre-existing universe either, and Netflix subscribers look to be the real winners at the end of the day now that two blockbusters have been set for release in December of this year and April of the next.
As much as a Snyder-helmed Star Wars had potential, the Rebel Moon trailer makes it clear that he’s made the most of having the shackles thrown off and being given the freedom to make exactly what he envisioned in his mind. Understandably, then, his wife and producing partner Deborah Snyder explained at Gamescon that she never wanted to head to a galaxy far, far away in the first place.
“Once, it was a Star Wars film, and I never wanted it to be. I remember, I said to Zack, ‘I just feel like your hands are going to be tied so much in what that IP is,’ even though it kind of lived outside of it. So I was kind of happy when that fell apart, because I always felt like it was better.
We learned so much with all our years working with the superheroes and creating those worlds, and to do something now that’s wholly original — we got to do a little bit of that in the world of zombies, and with Las Vegas, but to do something that is fantastical, we say it’s a science fantasy more than science fiction, and to take all those skills that Zack has been honing, and to do something in this space, just seemed really exciting.”
To say Disney and Lucasfilm have been a little heavy-handed in the past is an understatement, and as much as Rebel Moon is wearing those Star Wars influences on its sleeve, it looks to be significantly better off as a brand new IP.