In bad news for the Rebel Moon director, Netlix is electing not to move forward with Zack Snyder’s Army Of The Dead franchise.
Zack Snyder’s style of filmmaking has always been somewhat polarising, but at the moment he seems to be struggling to catch a break on that front.
His recent duo of Rebel Moon sci-fi movies came and went without much appreciation, as did the now trademark director’s cuts as well. Of course, critical appreciation hasn’t always been of paramount importance to Netflix when greenlighting new films, with the mighty algorithm considering innumerable statistics – far beyond critical appreciation – when deciding which projects should continue and which shouldn’t.
However, the winds of change are gusting over at Netflix too. Dan Lin is now in charge of the studio’s film division and we’ve now entered the era of ‘make ’em cheaper, make ’em better.’
That could be bad news for Snyder, whose films tend to be both expensive and critically divisive. So far, a third entry in the Rebel Moon series is unconfirmed. Snyder has said that the ‘groundwork has been laid’ but it seems like he’s waiting on Netflix’s decision. While the viewing figures were initially good, fewer people watched The Scargiver than part one, A Child Of Fire. Both Snyder and Netflix are now hopeful that promises of more violent cuts will encourage more viewers to check out the films and these alternative cuts could well swing the series’ future either way.
However, according to The Wrap, one Snyder franchise that Netflix won’t be moving ahead with is future instalments of the Army Of The Dead films.
2021’s Army Of The Dead was a hit for the platform, becoming its ninth most-watched film of all time with a reported 75 million households tuning in to see the production. A spin-off movie, Army Of Thieves, was subsequently released, but there were plans for more films as well as an animated series.
According to the report, those projects – including Planet Of The Dead, a direct follow up to Army – have now been scrapped.
We’ve seen plenty of these cancellations since Netflix’s film division underwent a shake-up, and it wouldn’t be surprising if the Rebel Moon series ended up going the same way. Snyder himself is looking to diversify his output, with the filmmaker recently revealing that he is looking to (temporarily at least) move away from the sort of big budget, effects-laden productions that have become his calling card, stating on the Reelblend podcast:
“I’m trying to do a small movie right now. I’m not going to say what it is, but I was, like, can I just do a movie without any visual effects in it for like five minutes? Then, I’ll go back to the insanity […] I’m supposed to be writing this little movie and that’s kind of what I want to do.”
If this report is accurate and Planet Of The Dead is no more, it will perhaps make it more difficult for the filmmaker to be granted a huge budget next time, so getting used to working on a smaller scale may be a smart move on his part. When we do hear about the fate of the Rebel Moon films, we’ll let you know here.
