Summary

Zack Snyder’s director’s cut of Justice League has solidified his cult filmmaker status among DC fans, leading to Netflix’s interest in his extended director’s cuts for Rebel Moon. Snyder’s approach to director’s cuts allows him to explore different aspects of the characters and enrich the narrative of his films beyond studio politics and limitations. While Snyder’s fans eagerly anticipate extended and R-rated cuts, the forced director’s cut format for Rebel Moon may be detrimental to the film’s overall reception, potentially depriving audiences of important moments for the sake of branding.

Zack Snyder’s biggest claim to fame is his director’s cut of the 2017 Justice League movie. The director’s cut in question resulted in a conflict between DC fans that has secured his fanbase and turned him into a cult filmmaker. A similar thing happened in the ’80s with Ridley Scott and Blade Runner. Now Netflix is banking on that cult status and already plans on letting Snyder publish two extended director’s cuts, one for each part of his two-part movie.

The plan is one part aesthetic, one part fan service, and three parts not letting the extraordinary scope of Rebel Moon’s development go to waste. Zack Snyder quite literally planted ten football fields of wheat in order to get the sheer enormity of his project right. Apparently, everything from the casting to the clothes to the creation of whole mythologies of backstory adds to the size of the film. So, it’s easy to imagine cutting all that down to two and a half hours must have been painful.

Updated December 20, 2023: With Rebel Moon releasing this week, this article has been updated with additional information.

But worry not, Snyder fans; this time, he will have his director’s cut, and it will be everything you want and more. Rumors are already circulating that the extended cut of Rebel Moon will be 5 hours long. Here’s why Zack Snyder already has a director’s cut ready for Rebel Moon.

Snyder Has a Reputation for Cuts
Justice League Release Date November 15, 2017 Rating PG-13 Runtime 120

Although it’s been years since the infamous Snyder Cut was released, people still talk about it. It has almost overshadowed the rest of his career. People may have forgotten by this point that Zack Snyder also directed Watchmen and 300, which got him his job directing Man of Steel in the first place. All of these epic, larger-than-life tales will certainly flavor his career for the rest of his life. But now, more than anything else, Snyder is known for his extended cut of Justice League.

Now that this is the case, it’s all the better for him to lean into it. With this becoming the defining moment in his career, he’s begun to elaborate on exactly where it all began. He’s folded it into his creative process as something that, instead of preventing him from going in one direction, allows him to journey down many different paths. Slash Film quoted the director:

“I was like, ‘That’s cool. That makes it a lot easier than this.’ Because it’s one of those things that I guess I was always inspired by movies like ‘Brazil,’ or 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. So for me, 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?'”

So, it seems Snyder is utilizing a “director’s cut” way of thinking in order to improve the narrative of his movies. With the different cuts, he is able to have an extended edition of the film that could be used to further enrich the narrative. This version doesn’t have to worry about studio politics, since it is its own independent thing, and allows for Snyder to experiment with deleted scenes.

While his version of Justice League made his name synonymous with the director’s cut, it’s actually something that Snyder has been doing for years. Dawn of the Dead, Watchmen, and the ultimate edition of Batman v Superman all have extended run times with more scenes added to the movie. For better or for worse, Snyder is making sure that nothing is left on the cutting room floor, as these new cuts of his films show every possible scene the audience could want to see, and he’s all the better for it. Especially considering that his fans will no doubt demand a director’s cut of nearly every film he releases for the rest of his career.

Related: The 30 Best Sci-Fi Movies on Max to Watch Right Now

Netflix Wants a Cut of the Snyder Pie
Rebel Moon Release Date December 22, 2023 Main Genre Sci-Fi

Read our review

Most of Snyder’s fanbase resides in allegiance to the Snyder Cut. They’ve since started several campaigns protesting the current changes going on at DC Studios, and most recently demanding that Snyder’s extended Justice League be sold to Netflix so that it could be aired there. Netflix would certainly be happy to have the property if not just the singular film. They’re the ones who didn’t just agree but encouraged Snyder to make a director’s cut of Rebel Moon. He naturally thought the idea was great.

Related: Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon R-Rated Cut “Shouldn’t Exist” According to the Director

It’s what the fans want as well. It’s easy to tell that any fan of Zack Snyder would be overjoyed to hear there’s an extended cut of his new sci-fi epic. Not just an extended cut, but one that’s R-rated as well. This gives Snyder the opportunity to make a movie specifically for his fans with no rules in the way.

What we’re getting is exactly what Snyder fans want, and it lets the director stretch his creative legs as well. Netflix is able to get the standard version of the film that they can market to a wider audience, while the R-rated cut can come later for die-hard Snyder fans to see his true creative vision. Plus, it better justifies the creation of Snyder’s massive Rebel Moon set. Netflix will no doubt have an excellent response from superfans across their subscriptions, but we’ll have to wait and see if it’s financially viable enough for the studios to keep giving us more Snyder Cuts. More important than if it’s a good decision monetarily, is finding out if this is a smart move for the film itself.

Was the Director’s Cut of Rebel Moon a Good Idea?

With Snyder’s other films, a director’s cut was necessary due to outside factors causing them to be altered. Whether it be studio interference cutting down Batman v Superman, or his tragic departure from Justice League, his creative vision was compromised. The film being shown in theaters wasn’t what he had hoped for audiences to see, and thankfully, a director’s cut would help bring his vision to reality. When it was announced that there would be a director’s cut of Rebel Moon, the biggest question of it all was: why? In an interview with the Associated Press, Snyder said:

“It’s almost like a different movie. It’s almost a different universe that [the R-rated cut] lives in than this movie. The reason for that is because it’s such a philosophical thing to shoot a director’s cut of a movie before you finish this version. With this movie, that demand was never made. We knew this would be a PG-13 movie. In my heart of hearts, I always wanted it to be rated R, but you realize this sort of scale and cost of a movie.”

Netflix offered Snyder the opportunity to make this film fully knowing ahead of time that he was going to get his director’s cut. This gave him the opportunity to play things a little more safely in the main PG-13 version of the film, while he was able to go crazy with the R-rated cut. As of writing this, the director’s cut of Rebel Moon hasn’t been released yet and there isn’t a date set for it, so we have yet to see the differences between the two. With reviews coming out for the theatrical version, it looks like this release method is hurting the film more than it helps.

Rebel Moon isn’t as much of a disaster as the 24% Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score would imply, but all the reviews point towards one common thing, which is that it’s obvious some very important things are missing from the film. One review from Empire said, “Despite some cool action sequences and interesting aliens, the first Rebel Moon installment is a disjointed ride through an under-realised universe”. The fatal flaw working against Rebel Moon is the forced director’s cut. It seems counterproductive to cut scenes out of a film just to artificially create another version. It’s not so much restoring what was lost in this case, it’s creating something new to the point where it looks to be hurting the film.

The reception isn’t as great as Snyder would’ve hoped, as audiences are being robbed of the full Rebel Moon experience. The director’s cut gimmick that will forever follow Snyder is a powerful tool, but when misused in a case like this, it works against the film. Saving important moments that would get viewers to understand and care about what’s going on for an extended edition is going to take a lot away from the standard version of the film. Perhaps it would’ve just been better to move on from the director’s cut format and make a film that isn’t missing important pieces for the sake of branding.