Netflix has released the first trailer for Zack Snyder’s upcoming sci-fi epic, Rebel Moon.
Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon is undoubtedly a visual treat. The film’s trailer showcases a fantasy world clearly influenced by Sci-fi franchises such as Dune and Star Wars. It featured numerous mind-blowing imagery, such as spider creatures, a chosen one, talking robots, badass ninjas welding laser swords, battling spaceships, and much more.
This is unsurprising as Snyder described Rebel Moon as a space opera, that is inspired by George Lucas’s Star Wars and the works of Akira Kurosawa. Interestingly, Snyder pitched the project as a Star Wars film before Disney’s 2012 acquisition of Lucasfilm. However, Lucasfilm’s management at the time turned down the idea.
A rejection that the director is now thankful for. He said, “I think it was a blessing in a lot of ways. Creatively, it’s wide open. “We’re all a little shaped by Star Wars at this point. You can’t not be. But what happens is that, in the telling, it gets weirder. It’s different because I have a different point of view. On a broad stroke, you might think, ‘Oh, it’s kind of Star Wars-y, but when you’re in it, it’s not.’ We had pitch meetings in our film classes.“
This version of the project came to fruition while Snyder worked on his 2021 Netflix film “Army of the Dead. He pitched the film to the streaming giant and Netflix showed interested in turning “Rebel Moon” into a franchise. Snyder revealed his conversations with Netflix in an interview. He said, “When I pitched it to Netflix, the scale was something they wanted. “They were like, ‘Well, how big could it be? How many movies?’ That made me go, ‘Okay if we really do this, we can sink our teeth pretty deep into this. We can’t really hit the bottom.'”
Rebel Moon’s official synopsis vividly depicts the film’s large scale. The synopsis reads: “When a peaceful colony on the edge of a galaxy finds itself threatened by the armies of a tyrannical ruling force, Kora (Boutella), a mysterious stranger living among the villagers, becomes their best hope for survival. Tasked with finding trained fighters who will unite with her in making an impossible stand against the Mother World. Kora assembles a small band of warriors—outsiders, insurgents, peasants, and orphans of war from different worlds. Who share a common need for redemption and revenge. As the shadow of an entire realm bears down on the unlikeliest of moons, a battle over the fate of a galaxy is waged, and in the process, a new army of heroes is formed.”
Along with directing the film, Zack Snyder also co-wrote the screenplay with Shay Hatten and Kurt Johnstad. Rebel Moon stars Sofia Boutella in the titular role of Kora. The rest of the cast comprises Charlie Hunnam, Ray Fisher, and Djimon Hounsou. It also features Anthony Hopkins, Jena Malone, Corey Stoll, Ed Skrein, Alfonso Herrera, Fra Fee, Cary Elwes, Stuart Martin, Cleopatra Coleman, Michiel Huisman, and Doona Bae.
On December 22, Netflix will release Rebel Moon Part 1: A Child of Fire. Meanwhile, Netflix will release Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver on April 19, 2024.