Rebel Moon: Zack Snyder Teases Animated Series and Podcast Spinoffs in the Works

Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon hasn't debuted yet, and the Justice League director is already putting some ambitious world-building plans in motion across multiple mediums. Snyder will direct the Rebel Moon movies -- once a single film but now split into two parts, with Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire debuting later this year and Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver following in 2024, and plans in place to make it a trilogy. In October, Titan Comics revealed its upcoming Rebel Moon prequel comic. Snyder now tells Total Film that he has additional plans for an animated series, "animated comic book," and podcast series all set in Rebel Moon's universe.

"I'm the gatekeeper for what's possible. I'm the only one who knows where the whole story is going, and I do have it mapped all the way," Snyder tells the magazine. "We're doing a narrative podcast, and an animated comic book, and an animated series. They all take place before the events of the movie. So you can start to understand the vastness of the mythology that we've been working on."

Rebel Moon co-writer Kurt Johnstad notes how detailed and well-documented Snyder's fiction universe is already. "The world is very, very detailed and fleshed out," he said. "There's hundreds and hundreds of pages of documents of methodology and mythology and lore. The timeline goes back 800 years, from our movies."

These are but the latest franchise expansion plans that Snyder has mentioned for Rebel Moon. He's previously hinted at a Rebel Moon video game project being in the works, a four-player action/RPG exclusive to Netflix's subscribers (the Rebel Moon movies will stream on Netflix). He's also said there are plans for a television series about Regent Balisarius, the tyrant, played by Fra Fee, who rules Rebel Moon's Imperium. A novelization of the first Rebel Moon movie is also in the works, written by V. Castro and published by Titan. Meanwhile, a canceled Rebel Moon tabletop RPG led to a lawsuit against Netflix.

Will there be a Rebel Moon director's cut?

Snyder will also stick to form, with plans for a Rebel Moon director's cut already in his mind. "I can't help myself," Snyder "The hope is for it to come out down the road. It was cool because I think the one thing with Netflix was coming off Justice League, and look, I've done since Dawn of the Dead, I did a Director's Cut for Dawn... Watchmen. I have two, there's two Director's Cuts, which is crazy. Yeah, BvS, of course, is one of my favorites, of course. And Justice League, that goes without saying. And so, it was just cool in the initial conversation I was having with Netflix about just this concept of them saying like, 'Oh, well, why don't we make it part of the plan?' That makes it a lot easier.

"There's a great history of director's cuts that are just cool. When I was in film school, I just always thought that was cool that there was this other movie that you could discover. And so, for me, there's a lot of... When you make a movie, you have a lot of voices in your own creative mind telling you what would be narratively just the strongest solution. And then, you have this other tug on you. I do anyway, that is like, 'Well, what if there's rabbit holes that are really amazing to go down and just kind of learn about different aspects of the characters?' For me, those have always been a thing that in the drawing when I draw the scenes or when I am writing the script, I always end up with a lot of that stuff that I feel like really tells the sort of deeper dive story."

Who is in the Rebel Moon cast and when is the release date? 

Rebel Moon stars Sofia Boutella as Kora, Charlie Hunnam as Kai, Michiel Huisman as Gunnar, Djimon Hounsou as General Titus, Doona Bae as Nemesis, Ray Fisher as Darrian Bloodaxe, Cleopatra Coleman as Devra Bloodaxe, Jena Malone as Harmada, Fra Fee as Regent Belisarius, Ed Skrein as Admiral Atticus Noble, and Anthony Hopkins as the voice of Jimmy. Snyder directs from a screenplay he co-wrote with Johnstad.

Rebel Moon will have a limited theatrical release on December 15th before making its streaming debut on Netflix on December 22nd. Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver will debut on April 19, 2024.