Having spent so long being shackled by the Warner Bros. top brass, Zack Snyder is evidently a huge fan of the creative freedom afforded by Netflix, having settled on sci-fi adventure Rebel Moon as his next directorial effort.
Army of the Dead was a massive hit for the streamer, while there’s a live-action prequel and animated companion series on the way, and Snyder is also set to produce Norse-inspired anime Twilight of the Gods, so he’s going all-in with the platform. Rebel Moon is a concept he’s been toying with for a long time, so long that it actually originated as a Star Wars spinoff.
Way back in 2013, it was reported that the Watchmen director was developing an Anthology entry inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai. It was denied by his representatives at the time, but earlier this year Snyder finally confirmed the story, and even hinted that he could resurrect the project as a standalone feature outside of a galaxy far, far away.
Well, that’s exactly what’s happened, with Rebel Moon set to revolve around a young woman with a mysterious past who’s forced to seek out a band of warriors from distant planets to make one last stand against the tyrannical ruler of a peaceful colony, hewing very close to the basic template of Seven Samurai, which invented the modern ‘men on a mission’ movie as we know it.
In his statement announcing Rebel Moon, Zack Snyder name-dropped both Star Wars and Seven Samurai, so he’s hardly hiding his intentions about finally getting around to his intergalactic epic, albeit a good few years later than planned, with Lucasfilm’s loss potentially turning out to be Netflix’s gain.
