Over a month after the release of Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver on Netflix, anticipation is building for the upcoming R-rated extended-cut editions, which have been widely discussed and are now available.
Rebel Moon is the big new fantasy sci-fi franchise from Zack Snyder. The two films currently on Netflix are PG cuts, with the first arriving just before Christmas late last year and the second part more recently dropping in April 2024. With the two movies out, next up are the much-talked-about extended R-rated cuts.
Why are Zack Snyder and Netflix doing the extended editions?
Zack Snyder’s brand has adopted the Snyder cut, popularized with his Justice League cut in 2021. After a family tragedy, Snyder stepped away from the franchise, handing it over to Joss Whedon. Warner Bros. Pictures allowed Snyder to produce an extended four-hour version, which was released in March 2023.
Deborah Snyder said at a recent Q&A that Zack is known for his cuts. Netflix wanted to cash in on that from the get-go, with the executive producer saying, “They [Netflix] didn’t just want deleted scenes,” but rather different versions entirely.
SlashFilm’s Ryan Scott was the first to announce that those editions would be coming soon. In an interview with Andy Koyama about another movie entirely, John Wick: Chapter 4, Rebel Moon is brought up midway through the interview.
He said, “We just did the first temp mix for the preview of part one, and it’s very exciting. It’s a big, huge, space — they probably don’t want me to say this — ‘Star Wars’-y, ‘rebels against the evil empire’ thing over all sorts of different worlds. It’s really fun. There’s going to be two films. I think we’re mixing that from June to February. And there’s also going to be extended R-rated versions of each of the two films, so we’re going to be mixing four different features.”
The release date for the extended cuts remains uncertain, with conflicting information. Ed Skrein initially suggested that the first movie’s extended cut would be available before Part 2, but this has not been confirmed.
As Zack Snyder first stated in March 2024 in an interview with I MINUTEMEN that the movies would be coming to Netflix in the Summer of 2024. In the Joe Rogan podcast, Snyder again stated the Summer of 2024 but said it would be much later.
Like the release date, the exact runtime for the extended cuts has not been confirmed to the minute, but each movie has roughly an extra hour of content. Snyder mentioned in the same interview that the expected runtime of the two extended cuts is “six hours together.”
What will the extended cut movies be?
On The Joe Rogan Experience, Jack Snyder said that they’re entirely different movies than extended cuts. The director spoke about how Netflix essentially got four movies for the price of two while also saying each film is an hour longer in these new cuts. “What we did inside those movies with tone and with gore and sex and all that stuff within the same framework,” Snyder said.
In an interview with EntertainmentWeekly, Snyder went into more detail about the differences. “Tonally, they’re completely different,” the director told them, adding, “Emotionally, it’s more like a parallel universe than an extended version. Things happen that in the R-rated version that don’t happen in the PG-13. The event order is all different, so it’s really an interesting exercise.
Snyder revealed in a Q&A with Rama’s Screen that many scenes were shot twice, once for the PG-13 versions and once for the R-rated versions before Netflix’s release.
He said, “In some of the scenes, the same line that is delivered in the R-rated version as opposed to PG-13 is a different take than it is in PG-13. So even though it’s the exact same words, the performance is slightly different. And so we were in the weeds that deep. We were like, in the alternative universe, this is the correct take for this movie, as opposed to the PG-13 version where that take is the correct take.
In another interview with ComicBook.com, Snyder said the director’s cut’s emphasis on a sci-fi deconstructive element, intending to juxtapose elements like heavy metal, violence, and sexuality within a high-budget production. He concludes, saying the new cuts offer a “more personal and bizarre viewing experience.”
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