For years, many fans of filmmaker Zack Snyder clamored for the release of his version of Justice League, a.k.a. the “Snyder Cut,” after the theatrical cut largely helmed by Joss Whedon was met with middling reviews, and in early 2021, the four-hour Zack Snyder’s Justice League became available to stream with a Max subscription in early 2021, followed by a home media release. Now Snyder is back with more director’s cuts of his movies, only this time, it’s a deliberate release strategy. Following the “main” versions of the Rebel Moon movies being released to Netflix subscribers, the extended cuts will hit the platform sometime later this year, and writer Kurt Johnstad promised in his interview with CinemaBlend that they’ll feature “grittier and sexier” content.
Back in March 2023, a little under two full years after Rebel Moon was officially announced to be moving forward at Netflix, Snyder shared that R-rated director’s cuts of both A Child of Fire and Rebel Moon were also on the way. I had the chance to speak with Johnstad prior to the release of the “main” version of latter movie on April 19, and we spent a good chunk of the conversation talking about what fans can expect from the extended versions, starting with the him saying the following while breaking down The Scargiver’s big deaths and what’s ahead for Kora and Balisarius:
The world really showed up for the first movie, it was #1 globally for a couple weeks and really had good numbers. I think the second movie’s a very different movie, but I think it’s satisfying, and I think that Zack’s extended cuts are really going to let people see a world that is grittier and sexier and has more action. I think each film, he said last night, is over an hour longer, and it’s not just a couple deleted scenes. There are whole sequences and backstories and world-building and mythology that he has included in the extended cuts. That, I think, happens sometime this year, that he’s going to drop both of them on the server, and I think that will also give people a different idea of what this world could be.
As of this writing, neither of the director’s cuts of the Rebel Moon movies have been officially slotted on the 2024 release schedule, but Kurt Johnstad believes we can expect them sometime before the year is over. CinemaBlend’s Rebel Moon: Part One review and Rebel Moon: Part Two review respectively scored them with 2.5 and 3 stars out of 5, but those have been among the kinder reviews for the movies, and the overall reception to Part Two hasn’t been much better than Part One. However, there’s a good chance that these director’s cuts will fare better than the “originals,” and at the very least, those who were intrigued by this sci-fi world will get to see it fleshed out in the midst of these more adult and action-packed beats.
Later during the interview, I noted to Kurt Johnstad how when we’d previously spoken for Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire, he told me that Anthony Hopkins’ Jimmy gets a lot more screen time in the director’s cut. As such, I was curious about which character we’ll see a lot more of in The Scargiver’s director’s cut, and he answered:
Because it’s an hour longer, you get Sky Yang’s character, the Aris character, who is the Imperium soldier who, in Movie 1, tries to protect Sam. We see his whole introduction. We have a different entry point for Noble than at the village, and I won’t go into that, but we really set the stakes of our bad guy through lines and learn a lot more about Noble. Definitely Jimmy, we see his whole disappearing and becoming feral and going into this Terrence Malick world where he is of the land and of the woods, so that’s super fun to watch. I think every character is served in a different way and with a little more, maybe not necessarily depth, but just a different tone to their character because you’re serving a different rating system, so one is a little more appropriate for younger viewers. And then Zack is really going for a hard R rating, or whatever the rating is, but it’s really how he sees this world.
So in addition to Jimmy getting even more time to shine in Part Two, we’ll also spend more time with Aris, who fought alongside Nemesis to protect the children and non-combatant women on the Veldtian village during Atticus Noble’s assault. But they’re just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how the Rebel Moon characters are handled in these director’s cuts. As Johnstad mentioned, not necessarily everyone is guaranteed extra screen time or depth, but tonally they’ll at least be handled differently thanks to the R rating.
Of course, anyone familiar with Justice League knows that while the basic framework of both versions of the movies is the same, i.e. the starring DC superheroes working together to fight Steppenwolf and his Parademon army, the specific narrative beats significantly contrast with one another. So I wanted to know if the plot unfolding in the director’s cuts of Rebel Moon unfolds the same way as in these “main” versions or if there are any notable differences with story beats. Johnstad told me:
Zack was talking about this last night, there are certain elements that are, ‘Oh, there’s Harmada, she’s a half-spider humanoid.’ The characters and those beats are the same, the entry points and exit points may be the same, and they might even be different takes from the same scene. So it could be the same scene, but it’s not the same shot because the performance is different. The performance is maybe more aggressive or tonally different. This is a thing I spoke to last night: it’s hard enough to make one movie, it’s really ambitious to make two movies, but [Zack’s] been making four movies. Part 1, PG-13, and Part 2, PG-13, and both of those in this R-rated world. So in a lot of ways, he’s making decisions… it’s an unbelievable tasking of his creative horsepower. I look at that and just think, ‘How is he tracking all those things?’ But he’s able to. So I guess to answer your question, yes, there will be many different scenes, not just deleted scenes, and there will be different sequences, and certainly tonally I think it will be a very different experience. If you’re a fan of a more adult-themed movie, then that’s the one you’re going to get later this year.
To summarize, the director’s cuts of Rebel Moon tell the same story as their predecessors, there’s just more material and, in some cases, alternate takes in order to give audiences more to absorb and make it feel more fitting for an R-rated sensibility. That said, I am curious to specifically see how the ending of The Scargiver’s director’s cut matches up with the original movie. Namely, could there be any additional teases for Part Three considering that Kurt Johnstad, Zack Snyder and fellow writer Shay Hatten have already mapped out how this saga can continue for many more movies?
We’ll just have to wait for Netflix to release the director’s cuts of Rebel Moon: Part One and Part Two and see how they compare with what’s already come out. Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more news on that front, and be sure to look over the best movies on Netflix selection.
