Zack Snyder's promising a 3-hour director's cut of critically trashed Rebel Moon

Rebel Moon currently holds the second-worst Rotten Tomatoes score of its director's career—but an even-longer version is still in the works

By William Hughes | December 16, 2023 | 12:50am

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Zack Snyder's promising a 3-hour director's cut of critically trashed Rebel Moon

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Doona Bae, Doona Bae’s little hat, Michiel Huisman Photo: Clay Enos/Netflix

Zack Snyder’s latest movie, Rebel Moon, arrives in theaters this weekend, before the Netflix-produced sci-fi film migrates on to the streaming service on December 21. And critics, so far, have not been kind to Snyder’s stab at a star-faring space epic. Although the film has bounced back a bit from early reports that it was rocking a salad bar-destroying 9 percent freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes—its up to 24 percent now, as a few more “fresh” reviews have rolled in—it’s still the second-worst critical reception of his directorial career. (Thanks, Sucker Punch!)

None of which, so far, appears to have blunted Snyder’s ambition, the one quality that critics and champions alike can agree the man possesses in abundance. It’s not just that Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver is already slated for release, although it is; Snyder has also made it clear that he’s already cooking up a director’s cut of the first film, A Child Of Fire, which is reportedly an hour longer than the film’s already 2-plus-hour run time. According to an interview with the Daily Express, Snyder has confirmed that the director’s cut of the first movie will be R-rated, and arrive ahead of The Scargiver; it will also focus heavily on one of the movie’s villains, Ed Skrein’s space-fascist Atticus Noble. Also, it’ll be, in Snyder’s words, “like, an hour longer and has a whole other opening that’s all Ed. It’s really crazy.”