Into the SNYDER-VERSE

Once the foundation of an unmade Star Wars movie, original space opera Rebel Moon is Zack Snyder’s most ambitious undertaking to date. Total Film meets Snyder and his closest collaborators to talk multi-part moviemaking, way-out worldbuilding, and how they’re shooting for the stars.

In a roundabout way, you could say Rebel Moon was Zack Snyder’s first film. Yes, it’s about to release, in two parts, some 20 years into Snyder’s feature filmmaking career. But Snyder first had the idea for Rebel Moon almost four decades ago, when Dawn of the Dead, Watchmen and the DCEU were distant dreams. And it hasn’t been far from his thoughts ever since.

‘It came from a pitch class I had at college,’ the director recalls over Zoom from his home office, where Total Film eyes Snyder-related paraphernalia dotted around the room, including a pile of books with King Leonidas’ helmet perched on top. ‘I said it was like a cross between The Dirty Dozen and The Magnificent Seven set in space. Part of the conversation was: “Why would Hollywood say no to your idea?” And no one could think of a reason. It always stuck in my mind.’

Over the years, Snyder would mention the elevator pitch to close collaborators, like Kurt Johnstad, co-writer of 300 and Rebel Moon, who remembers a conversation the pair had on a flight from Cape Town to London in 1997. ‘He said, “Wouldn’t it be cool, one day, if we could do a Seven Samurai in outer space?”’ At one point the project even had a working title – The Five. Then around 2012, during post-production on Man of Steel, Snyder took his Seven Samurai-meets-Star Wars concept to a logical destination: Lucasfilm itself.

‘All these years later I had thought of it as a Star Wars movie,’ Snyder says. ‘I pursued it as a concept set five years after Order 66. That was the timeframe it took place in, with all the Star Wars tech of A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, but with characters you’ve never heard of, and all in this distant corner of the galaxy.’ The conversation ‘got pretty far along’ with Lucasfilm according to Snyder, until the Disney buyout saw the blast doors slam shut.

‘It fell off at that point.’

During the contentious, but eventually triumphant, decade at DC that followed, Snyder tried to sell Warner Bros. on his ambitious space opera and a tie-in video game to no avail. It wouldn’t be until post-production on Army of the Dead in 2020 that Snyder took matters into his own hands and seriously committed to developing Rebel Moon as his next project, initially as a series before pivoting to a film. And, eventually, films. ‘We basically just started writing, on spec,’ says Johnstad. Work was far from complete by the time production wrapped on Army…, but Snyder felt he had enough to sell Netflix on his vision. ‘At that point,’ Snyder says with a smile, ‘they didn’t have a reason to say no.’

SPACE INVADERS

On the moon of Veldt life is simple, until the Imperium arrive. Merciless enforcers of the tyrannical Mother World’s will, in this corner of a vast galaxy the Imperium is led by the sadistic Admiral Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein). He gives the peaceful farmers of Veldt an ultimatum: hand over the entire harvest when we return, or be wiped out of existence. ‘We’re not avoiding the brutality of what a regime like this has up its sleeve,’ says fellow screenwriter Shay Hatten (John Wick: Chapter 4). ‘That was one way that we felt we could set ourselves apart from other space operas.’

One person on Veldt knows all too well the brutality that awaits if they don’t act – Sofia Boutella’s Kora. A former Imperium soldier in hiding, Kora has a complicated history that is central to Rebel Moon’s story. ‘Movie one is a character journey for Kora, even beyond what’s happening with the larger arc,’ Snyder explains. It’s no accident that the subtitles for both parts – A Child of Fire and The Scargiver – refer to different facets of Kora’s past. ‘It’s a story about what she’s facing, her own struggle for acceptance, and what all that means.’

The citizens of Veldt are in no position to resist the Imperium, so Kora sets out with humble farmer Gunnar (Michiel Huisman) and mercenary pilot Kai (Charlie Hunnam) to recruit a small band of warriors from across the galaxy who can defend Veldt, and potentially inspire similar rebellions elsewhere. ‘We spent a lot of time talking about who these people are and where we can take them,’ says Johnstad. While the disparate, strong-willed personalities won’t be exchanging friendship bracelets anytime soon, they all have one thing in common: deep hatred for the Imperium.

‘WE’RE NOT AVOIDING THE BRUTALITY OF WHAT A REGIME LIKE THIS HAS UP ITS SLEEVE’

SHAY HATTEN

Central to Kora’s recruitment drive are former Imperium tactician turned gladiator General Titus (Djimon Hounsou), gun-toting brother-and-sister guerrilla fighters the Bloodaxes (Ray Fisher and Cleopatra Coleman), and Milius (E. Duffy), the survivor of an Imperium massacre searching for a new cause.

Then there’s Nemesis (Doona Bae), a swordswoman with two robot arms and molten-metal blades. According to costume designer Stephanie Portnoy Porter, Nemesis is emblematic of the way the actors helped shape their characters on Rebel Moon. ‘We had a lot of conversations about incorporating design elements from her personal history,’ Porter says. ‘In the silhouette and in the proportions of Nemesis’ costume, there is a lot of South Korean warrior shapes.’

That said, there’s probably little of Anthony Hopkins in the character he voices – Jimmy, an ancient mechanical knight who was once a king’s guard, and now does the Imperium’s bidding, until events on Veldt change his perspective. Unlike Jimmy – a mo-cap creation on screen – half-human spider creature Harmada (Jena Malone) was achieved using a blend of live-action performance and CGI (see boxout p50), for a crucial encounter with Nemesis.

Finally, there’s Tarak (Staz Nair), an indentured servant from a once-great family who shares a connection with a Griffin-like creature called a Bennu, and appears to be allergic to shirts. ‘Staz was a beautiful sculpture when he walked in – I would have had to turn in my union card if I covered him up!’ chuckles Porter. Reminiscent of Conan or Tarzan, Tarak points to an aspect of Rebel Moon that deviates from traditional space operas – the embracing of fantasy elements alongside science fiction.

FIGHTING FANTASY

‘It’s Frazetta meets Heavy Metal, with a splash of Star Wars – the original,’ Snyder is quick to clarify. ‘It’s the grungiest scuzzy sci-fi that I could think of. Inside, the spaceships all look like submarines.’ Snyder calls Rebel Moon ‘sci-fi fantasy’, in contrast to the hard sci-fi of something like The Creator. ‘In our movie, the fantasy element plays a much bigger part, which makes it more mythological. Also, this movie has a lot of [John Boorman’s] Excalibur glued into it.’

There may have been a time when Rebel Moon was heading for a galaxy far, far away. But Star Wars this most certainly ain’t. ‘Adult sci-fi fantasy was the thesis for me,’ Snyder says. ‘For instance, when they go to the bar, it’s definitely a brothel. It’s not a Cantina. Luke wasn’t going to Mos Eisley to find a hooker.’ He laughs. ‘Look, we all grew up with Star Wars. I’m a fan of all things Star Wars, but it’s still very adolescent in its aesthetic. It can only go so far. The morality of Ahsoka is literally more cartoon-based. What is there for me? That’s where I started.’

Liberation from any IP shackles meant nothing was off the table at the scripting stage. ‘It was basically “any idea goes”,’ says Hatten, who joined Snyder and Johnstad roughly halfway through the writing process after working on Army of the Dead. ‘Zack’s imagination is so expansive,’ Johnstad adds.

‘I’M THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS WHERE THE WHOLE STORY IS GOING, AND I DO HAVE IT MAPPED’

ZACK SNYDER

‘Every time I would show up on set, and I would see the scale in which Zack was building out this universe… let’s just say I’ve never been on a set like this.’

Made for a relatively thrifty $166 million – a steal when you consider that’s a twofer – the sweeping, planet-hopping story meant that Snyder and production visual effects supervisor Marcus Taormina had to keep their effects ‘smart’. For example, establishing scale over just a few shots, and working with the rest of production to employ practical solutions where it made sense. Like growing Veldt’s immense wheat fields for real in Santa Clarita, California.

Snyder once again doubles as his own cinematographer on Rebel Moon after pulling double duties on Army of the Dead. As on that film, Snyder utilised bespoke shallow-focus lenses to give Rebel Moon its distinct, hazy visuals – a blessing and a curse for the visual effects department, who could obscure details in the distance, but had to work out complex ways to digitally recreate the unique analogue effect. And if you’re wondering how the visual effects in Rebel Moon appear to hold up where other major tentpoles have recently come up short, Taormina puts that down to preparation, and a director who understands visual effects.

‘If Zack [story]boards it, 90% of the time we’ll end up shooting those boards, which is good from a production standpoint,’ Taormina says. ‘There’s a lot of conversations upfront about it. And then we’ll come up with a plan with stunts and special effects, to make sure it’s as bulletproof as it can be when we go to filming.’

CUT ABOVE

Preparation was particularly important on Rebel Moon due to the demands of shooting two movies simultaneously, and releasing them less than four months apart – something few films at this scale have ever attempted. ‘Zack doesn’t lack for ambition,’ Johnstad notes. ‘At one point, the “one movie” was 200-plus pages!’ It was decided the story would be split over two films in order to preserve crucial character and mythology detail, but no one wanted it to feel like a single movie with a cliffhanger crowbarred into the middle.

‘They definitely have their own feel, the two movies,’ adds Hatten. ‘We worked to divide them to make sure they each felt like their own proper experience. So it is one macro story being told, but they both have their own flavour.’

To complicate matters even further, both parts of Rebel Moon will eventually be available in original PG-13 form, and as extended R-rated director’s cuts, running 45 minutes to an hour longer. The difference this time is that they’re not correctives; it’s all been planned from the beginning. Snyder claims he is ‘super-proud’ of the PG-13 version of the movie, but describes it as ‘less subversive, because a lot of that comes from the aesthetic of this hard-R point of view. When you see the director’s cut you’ll go, “OK, this is where he’s really sticking it to the genre itself.”’

This unprecedented approach created numerous logistical challenges. Hatten was tasked with wrangling edits across four different scripts, while Snyder had to keep the requirements of each cut in mind during shooting. Like a one-man Lucasfilm Story Group – the body responsible for keeping track of Star Wars canon – Snyder has also taken on the mantle of lore master, as the Rebel Moon universe expands beyond these first two films.

‘I’m the gatekeeper for what’s possible. I’m the only one who knows where the whole story is going, and I do have it mapped all the way,’ Snyder chuckles. ‘We’re doing a narrative podcast, and an animated comic book, and an animated series. They all take place before the events of the movie. So you can start to understand the vastness of the mythology that we’ve been working on.’

‘The world is very, very detailed and fleshed out,’ Johnstad adds. ‘There’s hundreds and hundreds of pages of documents of methodology and mythology and lore. The timeline goes back 800 years, from our movies.’ In the writers’ room there exists a 12ft whiteboard where the Rebel Moon timeline, as it currently stands, is recorded. ‘There’s a ruler with inches underneath that whiteboard,’ says Johnstad. ‘And the two movies are literally two or three inches of that entire 12-foot span.’

Since the WGA strike broke in September, Snyder, Hatten and Johnstad have been reconvening to discuss the future of Rebel Moon and are now ‘deeply into the process of figuring out the road forward,’ according to Johnstad. But no one is counting their space chickens before they’ve hatched. ‘We’re in the exact same position that every sequel-able franchise is in before it comes out,’ Snyder says. ‘You have to prepare for success. I’m optimistic. We have the whole thing teed up to go.’ Talk about shooting for the moon.

REBEL MOON – PART ONE: A CHILD OF FIRE RELEASES ON NETFLIX ON 22 DECEMBER. REBEL MOON – PART TWO: THE SCARGIVER RELEASES ON 19 APRIL 2024.