Has Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon gamble paid off for Netflix?

Netflix is one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world and it's no stranger to shelling out big money in search of a hit. But it hasn't taken many risks as big as Rebel Moon. Zack Snyder's two-part epic sci-fi story — it's now even more epic thanks to a director's cut running more than six hours — is the ultimate example of the streamer swinging for the fences.

Rebel Moon is a sweeping tale of the conflict between a ragtag team of resistance fighters and a seemingly invincible galactic empire. Sound familiar? That's because Snyder originally pitched the story to Lucasfilm as a potential Star Wars movie.

But it was Netflix who finally gave Snyder the green light and, indeed, the streamer is firmly aboard the director's hype train. In the wake of the high-profile fan campaign to get his superhero director's cut Zack Snyder's Justice League released online, Netflix swooped in to give the buzzy director a big bag of cash and a shedload of creative freedom.

It has now been five years since Netflix bet big on Snyder. So has it worked out for them?

Netflix got into the Zack Snyder business in 2019 when they acquired his zombie project Army of the Dead, which he had been developing at Warner Bros, having worked with that studio for several years on his DC movies. But, this being Zack Snyder, they weren't talking about just one film.

At the same time as Army, Netflix greenlit a prequel film — which became 2021's Army of Thieves — as well as a four-hour anime TV series, which has seemingly been canned. Snyder is set to make a sequel film called Planet of the Dead now that he's done with the Rebel Moon movies and he has spoken about at least half a dozen potential other projects in this universe.

Read more: How 'Army of the Dead' Fits Into the Snyderverse and if There’ll Be a Sequel (Esquire)

Army of the Dead got some decent reviews and won the Oscars Fan Favourite award in 2022 off the back of a concerted campaign by Snyder's supporters. That was, of course, the notorious ceremony in which "The Flash Enters the Speed Force" won the Oscars Cheer Moment. Oh yeah, and Will Smith slapped Chris Rock across the face.

But things have gone very quiet on the Army of the Dead front. Like so many streaming hits, there doesn't seem to be a great amount of cultural memory for the Las Vegas zombie heist film. Apparently not everything needs to be a franchise. Who knew?

Snyder seems to have applied the exact same ethos to Rebel Moon. He immediately announced the two core films and explained they would each get an extended "Snyder Cut" with a more adult rating than the PG-13 original releases. Those have now arrived on Netflix in August 2024.

But there's way more on the cards than that. Snyder has talked about a "trilogy of sequels" in the core chronology. He has since clarified that there will either be four movies in total, or six if the third and fourth movies are each split in half. Still with me?

Read more: Zack Snyder says shooting two versions of Rebel Moon was 'craziness' (Yahoo Entertainment)

There are also other multimedia projects on the drawing board. Some have actually seen the light of day already. Prequel comic book series Rebel Moon: House of the Bloodaxe landed in early 2024, while July 2024 saw the debut of The Seneschal: A Rebel Moon Story in podcast form.

Elsewhere — and take a deep breath for this — there are plans for an animated series, an animated comic book, a graphic novel, an animated short film, a tabletop role-playing game, and a four-player co-op action game. That's just the stuff that has been announced.

So has all of this worked for Netflix? Well, the way the platform reports — or doesn't report — its viewership numbers makes it quite difficult to know. The reported budget for Rebel Moon — across both parts — is $166m (£130m). That sounds like a lot, but for a pair of two-hour sci-fi movies, it's actually incredibly economical. Marvel Studios, for example, spent around $220m (£173m) on The Marvels alone, resulting in a very hefty loss after its box office struggles.

Read more: Rebel Moon star says violence in R-rated cut ‘might surprise people’ (The Independent)

Snyder has talked a big game about Rebel Moon's success as well. In an appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast in March 2024, Snyder pulled out some rather dubious maths to suggest that "more people probably saw Rebel Moon than saw Barbie in the theatre". His suggestion is that Rebel Moon would have been a billion-dollar hit on the big screen based on how many people clicked a button on Netflix to watch a couple of minutes before turning off when it was almost exclusively about wheat harvesting.

On that podcast, Snyder claimed that around 80-90 million accounts had watched the first movie. The second film came out of the blocks a lot slower than the first, but there will be another viewership bump from the release of the director's cuts. The numbers aren't spectacular, as far as we know, but they're healthy.

In terms of hard numbers, it's difficult to argue that Netflix has managed to extract millions of dollars from the Snyder machine. However, the streamer still has a prolific creative force on its roster, producing big, ambitious movies and TV shows. And although the Zack Snyder fan army aren't as vocal and dominant on social media as they once were, the director still has a considerable number of devoted followers who will eat up anything he makes.

Read more: ‘Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver’ Tops Netflix’s Film Chart (Deadline)

When you watch the making-of documentary for Rebel Moon, the phrase you hear over and over again about Snyder is "world-building". This is a filmmaker who thinks in terms of worlds, franchises, and sequels rather than individual movies. That's catnip to a streamer reliant on a constant flow of material to keep subscribers on board.

So while Netflix might not have got their money's worth from Zack Snyder just yet, they'll see all of this as a worthy investment. If he can make fans cheer like they did when The Flash entered the Speed Force, it'll be money well spent.