Zack Snyder has revealed that his Rebel Moon films will receive R-rated director’s cuts at Netflix.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly to promote his upcoming Netflix sci-fi epic franchise, Snyder confirmed that his previously announced director’s cuts of Rebel Moon are indeed real, and that “big chunks of the movie are different.”
Snyder told Entertainment Weekly that when he first began working on Rebel Moon, he had “written the script, in a vacuum just as I would was my normal aesthetic — a very hard, very like sexy, violent, crazy, everything’s all at 11” and figured he would “collapse it onto a more broader audience adventure.”
However, Snyder says that Netflix were supportive of his original vision: “In my conversations with Netflix, they were always like ‘Would there be any way to go back to your original subversive R-rated version? Then you can do your thing and we can have that as a separate piece of content.”
Snyder went on to explain: “I’m super proud of the PG-13 version of the movie. I really am. I think it’s really fun and it’s clean and cool but again, just the sort of weirdo darkness of the R-rated version if that was sort of my original thesis for what the movie could be, that’s what we did. That’s what we made in the R-rated version.”
According to the director, the director’s cut of Rebel Moon will be significantly longer, and a lot more different from the PG version. “It’s a full hour longer. It’s not just slightly different or a little bit more. There are big chunks of the movie that are different.”
“This was the first time I had ever been able to make a movie and plan for that,” Snyder said. “The cut was not me fighting with them like, ‘Okay, you won’t do what I want. Can I at least release it on DVD?’ It was us going together.”
Rebel Moon: A Child of Fire, will be the first of two films in the franchise. Part two, titled Rebel Moon: The Scargiver, is expected to release sometime in 2024. A release date for their respective director’s cut have yet to be announced.
Rebel Moon’s cast is led by Sofia Boutella as fearsome warrior Kora, alongside Charlie Hunnam, Michiel Huisman, Djimon Hounsou, Doona Bae, Ray Fisher, Cleopatra Coleman, Jena Malone, Ed Skrein, Fra Fee and Anthony Hopkins, who plays an android on a journey of self-discovery.
Rebel Moon Part 1: A Child Of Fire is scheduled for release December 22 on Netflix.