Zack Snyder says Rebel Moon 3 could be 'crazily' bigger than first two films

Watch: Zack Snyder shares plans for the future of the Rebel Moon franchise

Zack Snyder says the future of Rebel Moon could be on another scale entirely if he gets to make another sequel to his hit sci-fi saga.

“We have big whiteboards with all the timelines and all the different [options]... so the answer is, yes, it can go [gestures big]," the Batman v Superman director tells Yahoo UK in answer to where he plans to take his Netflix franchise next.

"It scales pretty crazily. You can imagine: this third act of this movie is a pretty big battle. But I think if you were to make more movies, that would be nothing compared to what's potentially in the offing.”

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver, which is streaming on Netflix from Friday, 19 April, picks ups immediately after the events of the first film. The story focuses on the remote moon planet of Veldt and the up-until-recently peaceful farming population’s efforts to prepare for battle against a still-very-much-breathing Admiral Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein) hellbent on revenge.

“It's a scale thing, right?” says Snyder. “Because if you think about this movie, it really is pretty intimate. You know, it's just our small village and the villagers. Yeah, the Dreadnought comes and it's scary, but it doesn't really resolve any of the greater political issues in this universe. And [the Motherworld] is still ruled by Balisarius. And the royal family is still dead. Well, partly anyway.

"So, I think it's just a scale thing of like, okay, well, now if there were to be more movies, you'd go and explore the actual motors that are running everything.”

In the meantime, Snyder is exploring spin-off stories in the form of comic books, with House of the Bloodaxe telling the “Game of Thrones-y” prequel story of Devra and Darrian Bloodaxe and their planet, Shasu, which is on the brink of civil war. A comic-book series about sword master Nemesis is also in the works, which will explore her origins further.

“That'll be fun to explore and see what she did to earn her legendary status,” says Snyder. “I think the fun is that we had asked the same question that you're asking me right now, of what character would be fun to flesh out, and the answer is all of them. I think we've done a lot of that work, and I can't wait for people to check it out.”

So what spin-offs would the cast like to see? Both Sofia Boutella, who plays Kora, and Game of Thrones and Supergirl actor Staz Nair, who plays Tarak, would love to explore his Samandraian prince character further.

“I want to know more about the arc between where he comes from and where he lands — it is so interesting,” says Boutella.

Nair adds, “What would be fun about it is the world behind the man. You know, the fall from grace; the royal man turned feral prince. And, as Sofia said, I'd love to see how we got there.”

He’d also like to explore the complex family dynamic we get a glimpse of in Rebel Moon – Part Two. “[Tarak] being the son of a king, being a prince, the responsibility of that, finding the humanity in all of that. I also believe that people of Sumandrai are very salt-of-the-earth. If you can communicate with big [prehistoric-looking] birds, I feel like you’re probably [in] quite a grounded, kind of symbiotic, world.”

Snyder also announced plans for a series focusing on Balisarius, the evil ruler played by Fra Fee, last year.

Northern Irish actor Fee, who appeared in Marvel series Hawkeye, teases what we can expect: “It's no secret that [in the films] I'm obviously playing an older version of my relatively young self sat here. I’m sporting a dashing grey beard for most of the film.

"I would love the opportunity to see Balisarius’s rise to power because we've got this outsider in this world, which is why he speaks with a curious Northern Irish accent, that has managed to manipulate and orchestrate his life in such a way that he finds himself ultimately in the most powerful position in the entire universe, after the king is slain and he finds himself regent.

"So that is a fascinating story. And I know it and Zack explained it all in depth to me, and it would be wonderful to be able to fully show that to audiences.”

One actor not hoping for a spin-off is Ed Skrein.

“I feel that we've already seen everything from him,” says Skrein. “I'm very proud of the work I've done with him. That was the amazing thing – no BS – having that arc with Noble inside of a piece like this, for an antagonist, it's very rare that you get that much service to your character. But not rare in a Zack Snyder movie. So I do feel like I've done Noble now.”

It does seem, then, that there’s no way back for space’s most malicious tie-wearing sociopath.

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver premieres on Netflix on 19 April.