How ‘Rebel Moon’ Filmmaker Zack Snyder Made the Director’s Cut an Essential Part of His Brand

Zack and Deborah Snyder tell TheWrap how the extra-long, very R-rated versions of the Netflix epic were baked into their plan from the beginning

The post How ‘Rebel Moon’ Filmmaker Zack Snyder Made the Director’s Cut an Essential Part of His Brand appeared first on TheWrap.

The opening scene of “Rebel Moon,” Zack Snyder’s ambitious, multi-part space opera, is very different now that the filmmaker’s R-rated, extra-long director’s cut has arrived on Netflix.

In the prolonged sequence, wholly missing from the initial version of the movie, the evil general Atticus Noble (a sinewy Ed Skrein) descends on an unsuspecting world. He’s looking for a pair of freedom fighters who threaten the dominance of the galactic Imperium. The sequence is absolute madness. Women are stripped naked and branded with the insignia of the Imperium. A man says goodbye to a family pet – a little gremlin-like creature. Seconds later the gremlin explodes, causing damage to the invaders. 17 minutes in, a child is forced to murder his father with a piece of bone; ghoulish figures pick up the father’s teeth and add it to a grisly tableau. Noble ends up killing the family anyway.

Not only is the sequence shocking – brutal, graphic, gremlin-adorned – but it’s a bellwether for the rest of “Rebel Moon – Chapter One,” now subtitled “Chalice of Blood” and running a whopping 204 minutes. There are few filmmakers, besides maybe Ridley Scott, who have weaponized the director’s cut quite like Zack Snyder. In Snyder’s hands, these expanded editions not only offer a bolder, more uncompromising vision. They are also an irresistible, highly marketable selling point.

Beginning with 2009’s “Watchmen,” Snyder was able to put out versions of his movies on home video that were too unwieldy, too weird, too damn long for theatrical exhibition. His adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ groundbreaking comic book series was expanded, incorporating more scenes fans were desperate to see in live action. An even longer version incorporated animated interstitials based on the comic book-inside-the-comic book. He also took his “Man of Steel” sequel, “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” to another level with his director’s cut, which imagined an even darker, more psychological fraught landscape for his superpowered characters. At that point, Snyder’s director’s cuts became the cut for fans of the filmmaker. And it allowed him to own something that had, in the years before, been a gimmick for the then-lucrative DVD market. Now you waited for Snyder’s alternate cuts to see one of the most exciting filmmakers of his generation, uninhibited.

What was once derided as a loopy “Star Wars” clone, stemming from the fact that Snyder pitched the movies to Lucasfilm years earlier and feature hallmarks like a trip to a creature-filled cantina, takes on a different tenor and shape with the director’s cuts, which arrive on Netflix at the same time months after the release of the PG-13 versions of Chapter One in December and Chapter Two in April.

The movies, which follow Sofia Boutella’s Kora as she searches for warriors from across the cosmos to defend her calm backwater planet from the threat of government overreach, feels far removed from the safety of a galaxy far, far away. The characters get more time to shine, the action sequences are more visceral and the strangeness that was manicured out of the initial version is on full display – behold, an anthropomorphic starship engine which gained sentience after being fed bone and blood!

As to how these new versions were actually put together, Snyder is fairly nonchalant. He describes these longer versions of the initial “Rebel Moon” and its follow-up (now subtitled “The Curse of Forgiveness” with a running time of 173 minutes) as “the movies I wrote” with frequent collaborators Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten. Netflix asked if Snyder could make the epic shorter and rated PG-13 “I think for practicality purposes,” the filmmaker guesses.

“Because of the extensive visual effects, they felt like there’s a potentially bigger market in the PG-13 world than the R-rated world,” Snyder told TheWrap ahead of the release of the “Rebel Moon” director’s cuts on Netflix (the extended versions of both films are now streaming). Netflix then told Snyder and his wife and producing partner Deborah Snyder that they would supply “a little extra money to shoot those additional scenes.” That way, when Snyder was assembling the inevitable director’s cuts, “you’d have those scenes.” This made the director’s cuts “really standalone movies” and far more than just the original version with extra shots, as was the practice during the halcyon days of DVDs.

Deborah described the process as being “a significant amount of work.” “I love the fact that it wasn’t an afterthought,” she told TheWrap. In the past, she said, studios would pay for it (in the DVD days) or Snyder and his producer would have to fight the studios afterwards (as was the case with the reconstituted version of “Justice League”). “They were like no, we want to plan for it, because he’s known for it,” Deborah said. “And for us, it was the best case scenario.” She said that the director’s cuts are “Zack’s true vision.”

She insists that if they had gone with the R-rated cuts initially, they would have gotten notes from the studio, potentially diluting the finished project. “But this was the director’s cut. He didn’t have any notes. They let him have complete freedom. Everyone got what they wanted.” For Deborah, it allowed for a movie that is sexier and more violent, but one where the character work is more fully developed and the world of “Rebel Moon” gains dimension.

As for how these new versions were produced, they were made alongside the initial versions during the extensive principal photography from April to December of 2022. They would sometimes do alternate takes, particularly when it came to language, but she admits that most of the extra blood and gore was added digitally, so they didn’t have to re-rig any sequences on set. (In the past, gags were accomplished with squibs and physical blood, meaning a complete clean and reset for each take.)

“It got slightly trickier in post because we were working on all of these cuts simultaneously,” Deborah said. They brought on additional visual effects teams “because you want to make sure that you’re being as efficient as possible, especially with the money. If you knew you had two versions, you had to keep working on the PG-13 version. You would do the shot once and maybe turn off the blood or something.”

The filmmakers delivered the movies “based on their releases.” “It’s so much content,” Deborah said, with two hours of new footage plus all the alterations to the existing sequences. After they delivered the second movie in its PG-13 form, they began buttoning up the director’s cuts. “But always had an eye [on the other cuts], especially when it came to visual effects and music.”

Zack said that the making the PG-13 version “allowed me to make the R-rated movies.”

“For me, as a filmmaker, I don’t begrudge [the PG-13 cuts],” Zack said. “Ideally the audience would have seen the R-rated versions first, but there’s a reality to it.” He is thankful that Netflix “was incredibly indulgent to let us make these crazy versions of the movie that really shouldn’t exist.”

At one point, Zack said that the PG-13 and R-rated versions of “Rebel Moon” are so different that “the movies take place in like two different timelines. The PG-13 and the R-rated versions of the movie are almost alternate realities from each other, not like additional footage.” This, we should add, is a very fun way to look at the movies.

When we wondered why the movie needed an official R-rating at all, considering the fact that “Rebel Moon” would never screen in a theater, Zack said he wasn’t sure about the “politics of the rating,” but the filmmakers did admit that getting an R-rating for the director’s cut of the first movie was a “struggle.” That struggle had to do with some of the sex scenes (featuring Boutella’s Kora) and the aforementioned sequence on Toa. “The bashing of the brains and the scooping of the brains,” Zack said, although, “we’ve seen that stuff before in other movies.”

With the introduction of the director’s cut of “Rebel Moon,” which makes the films richer, more layered and more visually engaging (there’s nothing quite like a human head exploding in slow motion), you’d think that there would maybe have been a theatrical component introduced. “I’m absolutely happy to make a theatrical film. I love the theatrical experience. And I’m a huge advocate and a huge fan of theatrical movies and seeing movies in the theater. Absolutely no doubt,” Zack said.

“But I also understand and have no problem with the basic notion of this film was for it to be a streaming film, and to be seen on the streaming service. That was just the way this film was going to be seen.” This didn’t mean he was going to alter his approach to the material, though. “I don’t visualize it in a different way. It’s always me. It’s at 11,” the “300” and “Watchmen” filmmaker continued.

In terms of what Zack is most excited about in these extended versions, he points to the additional material featuring Jimmy (voiced by Anthony Hopkins), an ancient robot who becomes mythic. “Everything’s been touched, so it’s a difficult thing to quantify,” Zack said.

“Tonally, it’s just different,” added Deborah. “You see it differently.” Zack agreed. “Because the violence is over the top, it’s a little bit more satirical, it’s a little bit more of a comment on the genre,” Zack said.

In the past, the Snyders have said that they envision several more films in the “Rebel Moon” universe; and indeed the updated version of the second film concludes on an even more precipitous cliffhanger. While nothing has been announced, the franchise has been slowly creeping outward – there are a number of books that have been published (and continue to be published), along with several video games on the horizon and a narrative podcast series focused on Jimmy’s past adventures.

But when we asked if the Snyders have spoken to recently appointed film chief Dan Lin, Zack said that while he’s spoken to Lin, it hasn’t been “specifically about this.” So, yes, the director’s cuts could be the end of the road for “Rebel Moon.” Not that Zack thinks like that. “These movies were made to fill a giant, mythological cauldron, if you will. And we wanted to make sure all the corners were painted in correctly.”

“Army of the Dead,” a movie the Snyders made for Netflix before “Rebel Moon,” had a similarly ambitious plan, with several sequels and spin-offs in the works (one, the prequel “Army of Thieves,” was actually released), along with an animated series. The animated series was quietly canceled, along with plans for subsequent films. Zack said, “We are very ambitious with everything.” And “Army of the Dead” isn’t entirely dead, as Deborah pointed out that there will be a themed experience coming to the Six Flags theme parks this Halloween. “It’s going to be a really cool experience,” she added.

Now that “Rebel Moon,” or at least this phase of it, has been completed, the Snyders are looking at a number of projects – some original, some based on preexisting material, according to Deborah. “We’re just trying to see what lines up,” said Zack. Whatever it is, we’re sure he’ll turn it up to 11.

And maybe one day Zack Snyder’s director’s cut will be the cut that is released wide, either theatrically or via streaming.

“Sure, but you know, I take what I can get,” he said.

The post How ‘Rebel Moon’ Filmmaker Zack Snyder Made the Director’s Cut an Essential Part of His Brand appeared first on TheWrap.