With the success of HBO Max’s Zack Snyder’s Justice League and Netflix’s Army of the Dead, Zack Snyder is sticking to genre movies and streaming for his newly announced next project: Netflix sci-fi epic Rebel Moon, which the director hopes will become a franchise not unlike Star Wars, the series that initially helped inspire it.
As the Hollywood Reporter reveals, Rebel Moon is also inspired by the films of Akira Kurosawa—which, famously, also inspired a certain George Lucas. The trade notes that Snyder first came up with the concept 10 years ago as part of a Star Wars pitch that ended up not moving forward after Disney gained Lucasfilm in 2021; it’s described as “a more mature take on the universe created by George Lucas.” Along the way, Snyder also considered turning Rebel Moon into a TV series, but with this Netflix deal he’ll be able to realize the feature—and/or features—he’s been longing to make.
The director tells THR that he’s spent “the last two to three years” working on world-building for the project, and notes “This is me growing up as an Akira Kurosawa fan, a Star Wars fan. It’s my love of sci-fi and a giant adventure. My hope is that this also becomes a massive IP and a universe that can be built out.”
Never one to think small, that Zack Snyder. THR, which reports that the hope is Rebel Moon will begin filming early next year, has this plot synopsis to share: “The story is set in motion when a peaceful colony on the edge of the galaxy is threatened by the armies of a tyrannical regent named Balisarius. Desperate people dispatch a young woman with a mysterious past to seek out warriors from neighboring planets to help them make a stand.”
That definitely sounds familiar, but also promising. What do you think about action master Snyder entering the sci-fi franchise sphere? Will he cast Tig Notaro outright this time, at least?
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