Zack Snyder Reflects on Hollywood Evolving After Superhero Movie Boom

Zack Snyder is best known for helming superhero films with many big projects under his belt such as Watchmen, Man of Steel, Batman vs Superman, and his cut of Justice League. While it seems like his days with DC are done, Snyder is working on creating a franchise of his own. Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Fire is now playing in select theaters before it heads to Netflix next week. Snyder was inspired to write the original sci-fi story after growing up watching Akira Kurosawa films and Star Wars. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with Snyder and we asked his opinion about the current demand for more original films. 

“It’s weird because … for me, making moves in the movie business as a director, writer/director, is a glacial thing,” Snyder explained. “I can’t just turn and say, ‘Oh, that’s what people want to see.’ So like, this has been a long time in the making. I think it’s always been my sort of goal to create original work and kind of make new stuff. So if that happens to line up with what people want, that’s fine by me.”

Is Rebel Moon Getting a Director’s Cut?

At the time of this writing, Rebel Moon is up on Rotten Tomatoes with a 23% critics score after 43 reviews. Many of the reviews anticipate a better version when the director’s cut is released. One of Snyder’s most famous projects is his cut of Justice League, which was a four-hour version of the superhero film. The director plans to take the same route with Rebel Moon. In fact, he’s already teased different cuts of the movie before the first version is out. During Snyder’s interview with ComicBook.com, he revealed some details about his next version of the film. 

“I think that the director’s cut sort of contains a slightly more sort of sci-fi, deconstructive element. Because for me, one of the things that I was tackling in, sort of conceptually, when I was thinking about it, was a way to have the irony of something like heavy metal, something super violent, super sexual, super visually gigantic in a movie where it has no business belonging in a movie like this,” Snyder explained. 

“It cost a ton of money and that is like a real legitimate production value and it’s crazy,” he continued. “Normally, those two things don’t go together too well, because these things have big commercial appeal. So if you make it too niche … No, but you know what I mean? It allowed me to do both … so when you see the director’s cut, you just see something a lot more weirdly, more personal, and bizarre.” 

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.