'Rebel Moon' - 3 Key Lessons From Netflix's Zack Snyder Stumble

Neither extended cut opened in Netflix's global top ten, showing that A) the streamer should have just released the R-rated version first and B) Snyder's fanbase is an "online ≠ real-world" artifice.

We don’t know how many subscriber households watched the two-part director’s cut of Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon weekend, but we do know it was less than 3.6 million per movie. The 204-minute Rebel Moon: Chalice of Blood did not place in the top ten globally or in any single territory. At least the 170-minute Rebel Moon: The Curse of Forgiveness placed, at least for a weekend, eighth in Nigeria, ninth in South Korea and tenth in Romania. Considering the amount of time, money ($166 million, not bad for two sci-fi epics with two different cuts) and expectations set for the sci-fi “Seven Samurai in space” flicks, it’s a grim conclusion to what’s been a weirdly convoluted saga.  

It’s another example of Netflix stumbling when it makes the same mistakes that felled its conventional Hollywood rivals (desiring franchises for the sake of franchises, mistaking online chatter for real-world interest, etc.). It doesn’t need multipronged franchises, “the next Star Wars/Game of Thrones/Avengers,” or Zack Snyder.  For that matter, Snyder doesn’t need a distribution outlet that — once again — (albeit for different reasons) left him out to dry by releasing a needlessly compromised, willfully inferior version first rather than the better, more coherent and more unique-unto-itself preferred cut as a “treat.” Maybe someday we’ll get to see the filmmaker’s “better” version first, rather than after the fact either as damage control or skewed gaming of viewership metrics.