Hot on the heels of the first full trailer release for Rebel Moon, IGN has released details of a set visit they made to the Netflix film's shoot at Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood back in October 2022.
Director Zack Snyder reveals that the film will be a classic tale of "good vs evil" where the Imperium are clearly the bad guys and the insurgents are the heroes.
'It's also very much clear with its morality, who's good and who's bad. We don't do a lot of the Imperium is misunderstood,” Snyder stated while making mock air quotes.
In terms of the film's lore, Snyder explained that the Imperium were always bad guys but now they've become a whole lot worse, following the death of the old king and the coronation of Fra Free's Regent Balisarius.
"The old king was much more of a straight-up imperialist. But now, the Regent Balisarius [played by Fra Fee] is much more like a dictator. He'd be happy to raze a planet just for its natural resources rather than land and see what the people are like. The modern Imperium is much more aggressive. It was aggressive, and now it's worse."
In a separate IGN interview that followed the film's Gamescom presentation, Snyder revealed that the standard film releases will both be roughly two hours.
"We're still cutting movie two, so I don't know the exact runtime, but they're about two hours each... the movies themselves," Snyder said. "I think movie two is under two hours right now."
The directors-cut versions of both films will naturally exceed two hours by a fair bit as Snyder described them as having an extra hour of content.
Rebel Moon Part 1: A Child of Fire will be released by Netflix on December 22, 2023, and will be followed by Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver which drops on April 19, 2024.
The Rebel Moon cast includes Sofia Boutella (Star Trek Darkness, Kingsman: The Secret Service) as Kora- the primary protagonist of the film, and Fra Fee (Hawkeye) as Regent Balisarius- the film's primary antagonist.
Also starring in the film are Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword), Michiel Huisman (World War Z, Game of Thrones), Djimon Hounsou (Shazam), Doona Bae (Jupiter Ascending, Cloud Atlas), Ray Fisher (Justice League), Cleopatra Coleman (The Last Man on Earth, Cobweb), Jena Malone (Sucker Punch, Neon Demon), Ed Skrein (Deadpool, Alita: Battle Angel), and Anthony Hopkins (Thor: Ragnarok, The Rite).
About Rebel Moon: When a peaceful colony on the edge of a galaxy finds itself threatened by the armies of a tyrannical ruling force, Kora (Sofia Boutella), a mysterious stranger living among the villagers, becomes their best hope for survival. Tasked with finding trained fighters who will unite with her in making an impossible stand against the Mother World, Kora assembles a small band of warriors — outsiders, insurgents, peasants and orphans of war from different worlds who share a common need for redemption and revenge. As the shadow of an entire Realm bears down on the unlikeliest of moons, a battle over the fate of a galaxy is waged, and in the process, a new army of heroes is formed.