It’s been a long time coming, so long in fact that Zack Snyder first came up with the core concept while he was still studying film in college, but Rebel Moon is finally set to be unleashed upon audiences next month when the first half of the two-part sci-fi epic comes to Netflix.
The road has been winding to say the least, with the intergalactic riff on Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai first originating as a Star Wars spin-off before Disney and Lucasfilm got cold feet, which then saw Snyder’s former home studio Warner Bros. decline the opportunity to make his dream a reality.
Fortunately, third time marked the charm as a result of the filmmaker’s exclusive development deal with Netflix, and the streaming service is going all in on a SnyderVerse of its very own after revealing ambitious multimedia expansion plans.
In an interview with Total Film, Snyder compared Rebel Moon to a pair of all-time classic Westerns, but not without admitting that despite being rejected by two of the heaviest hitters in the industry, he never believed the project would fail to justify its potential existence.
“I said it was like a cross between The Dirty Dozen and The Magnificent Seven set in space. Part of the conversation was: ‘Why would Hollywood say no to your idea?’ And no one could think of a reason. It always stuck in my mind.”
Rebel Moon looks excessive in every sense of the word, and while it’s nigh-on guaranteed to become one of Netflix’s biggest-ever hits, we’ll be very curious to see if having unrestrained creative freedom allows Snyder’s indulgences to get the better of him once again.