As part of Netflix’s Geeked Week presentation today, the streaming giant provided fans with a first look at Rebel Moon, the upcoming, Star Wars-inspired movie from Man of Steel director Zack Snyder. The filmmaker had dropped a tweet yesterday that got fans excited for what was to come, and today, a glimpse at the much-anticipated sci-fi epic arrived. While the Netflix Geeked content won’t be officially online right away, don’t be surprised if the enthusiastic Snyder fandom immortalizes it in digital stone and brings it to Vero to live in peace.
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Rebel Moon comes on the heels of Snyder’s Army of the Dead, which was not only a huge hit for Netflix but has actually spawned its own mini-franchise.
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 the Tyrant.
Not just inspired by George Lucas’s universe, Rebel Moon initially began development as a “more mature” pitch for the Star Wars universe — but one that fell by the wayside when Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012.
“This is me growing up as an Akira Kurosawa fan, a Star Wars fan,” Snyder said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter when the film was announced. “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.”
It’s easy to see this as an extension of the Army of the Dead concept, where Snyder took something he was interested in and, rather than trying to get the rights to do something in-universe, simply made the Zack Snyder version instead.
Eric Newman, who produced Snyder’s take on Dawn of the Dead in 2004, will produce this film, too. Ironically, Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead was written by James Gunn, whose Guardians of the Galaxy generated dozens of think-pieces linking him to, and eventually asking him about, new Star Wars that might be in his future. For Gunn, the idea didn’t hold any appeal, as he said he would rather create stories from the ground up…which is kind of what Snyder is now doing.
