Zack Snyder is no stranger to making legendary cuts of his movies, exhibit A – the Justice League Snyder cut. Now, the filmmaker hints that his R-rated director's cut of genre-bending Rebel Moon will go further than the main version in terms of violence, sexual content, and overall darkness.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Snyder explains that his cut of the space-action-adventure is "very like sexy, violent, crazy, everything's all at 11." The director goes on to say that he believed when the movie went into production, he would be able to collapse all of these crazy ideas into something that would appeal to a "broader audience." But when Snyder went into talks with streaming giant Netflix, they were just as interested in his R-rated version.
Snyder recounts the conversation, "I think what happened with in my conversation with Netflix, they were always like, 'Would there be any way to like go back to your original sort of subversive R-rated version?' I was like, 'Yeah, that'd be great.' And they go, 'Then we could have like, you know, you could do your thing and we could have that as a separate piece of, you know, content.'"
Earlier this year the director already announced that the extended cut will be an hour longer than the Netflix original, and will actually add to the story, rather than just being full of deleted scenes.
However, that’s not to say the more tame version is any less entertaining than Snyder's penultimate cut. "Look, and I'm super proud of the PG-13 version of the movie. I really am. I think it's really fun and it's clean and cool," Snyder explains, "but again, just the sort of weirdo darkness of the R-rated version if that was sort of my original thesis for what the movie could be, that's what we did. That's what we made in the R-rated version."
Rebel Moon Part 1 lands on Netflix on December 22, 2023. Rebel Moon Part 2 will follow soon after, streaming on Netflix on April 19, 2024. For more streaming fun, check out our list of the best Netflix movies.
