Rebel Moon Star Confirms Zack Snyder Built a Five Acre Set for Netflix Movie

Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Fire is now playing in select theaters, and the new film will be hitting Netflix next week. The sci-fi movie was directed by Zack Snyder who is best known for directing multiple DC films. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to talk to two of the movie’s stars, Djimon Hounsou and Staz Nair, and they revealed how Snyder brought his set to life. 

“It was a 3 to 5-acre piece of land set in the desert that he built with a whole working village in with electricity,” Nair explained. “He built a running, rushing river through the desert, manmade sort of self-functioning after a while. And also the moon where we live on is this megalithic gas giant… No, can’t be gas because people live on it … a giant Jupiter kind of planet with eight rings that exudes this very red, beautiful rich red hue that I’m sure you may have already seen that was practically done.”

He continued, “He built a 300-foot LED lens that would change color depending on the time of day. And all of a sudden, at night time, this beautiful iridescent red would just f*cking seep through the village. And that’s when you’re like, ‘Okay, yeah, I’m in space right now.’ But what was cool about it, was it was simple things, right? Other than the red moon, it was just a beautiful kind of Scandinavian-esque agricultural world. It was still kind of, ‘Okay, this is something I can believe.’”

“That was the only thing tangible about this story,” Hounsou added. “Certainly the only thing that felt real. I would say the environment itself is a character that, you know, a strong character in the story in which most of us were completely ignorant and could not … I mean, we can all read the same book and have a completely different understanding of it. Right? And so similar here, what we all read, we kept going back to him, sort of like, ‘So now how do we, where are we in this part?’ So, yeah, we were continuously being sort of at schooled, educated about the environment.”

What Is Rebel Moon About?

Rebel Moon is set in a peaceful colony on the edge of the galaxy that finds itself threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius. They dispatch a young woman with a mysterious past to seek out warriors from neighboring planets to help them take a stand against the Tyrant.

Rebel Moon stars Sofia Boutella, Ray Fisher, Charlie Hunnam, Djimon Hounsou, Jena Malone, Anthony Hopkins, Ed Skrein, and more. It’s Snyder’s next big franchise following the success of his original zombie project Army of the Dead, also at Netflix.

Back when Rebel Moon was first announced, Snyder shared what led him to create the project.  

“This is me growing up as an Akira Kurosawa fan, a Star Wars fan,” Snyder wrote in a statement. “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… I’ve spent the last two or three years building out this universe. Every corner has to be painted in. I’ve been doing designs, constantly drawing and really cultivating its fertile ground to make this world fully realized.”

Rebel Moon Part 1: A Child of Fire is set for release on Netflix on December 22. Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver is coming on April 19, 2024.