Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire/Production

Development

News of the project's existence was being reported as early as January 2013. Originally conceived as its own IP during Zack Snyder's days in college, he later pitched it as a movie set in the Star Wars universe. The purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney halted talks of production. Deborah Snyder considered this to be the best thing for the movie, noting that they wouldn't want it held back by the limitations of existing IPs. They continued work on the movie, hoping to sell Warner Bros. on the concept, then, after production on Justice League, Snyder became unsure if he would want to return to feature films and began considering Rebel Moon as a series, instead. They later decided that a movie would be a better place to start, citing how easy it would be to lose track of the scope of a series and the fact that it would be easier to achieve the required budget for a movie. A decade after the Star Wars spinoff talks, Snyder pitched the film to Netflixas an original intellectual property, no longer connected to Star Wars. He said he hoped the film might launch a broader franchise. On July 6, 2021, Rebel Moon was officially announced as a film for Netflix's streaming service. Zack Snyderwould direct it himself with his wife, Deborah Snyder, and their production partner, Wesley Coller producing through The Stone Quarry. Eric Newman (who previously worked with Snyder on Dawn of the Dead) would also be producing through his studio, Grand Electric, which would bring in Sarah Bowen to executive produce. Snyder and Kurt Johnstad(300) developed the story with the first 100 or so pages of the script, while Shay Hatten (Army of the Dead) came aboard to help speed up the process of finishing the screenplay, resulting in a 216-page script.

On September 2, 2021, Snyder confirmed he was working on the script for Rebel Moon. It was later revealed that the screenplay ended up at 172 pages, which would have been roughly three hours once filmed. When Scott Stuber with Netflix pointed out that movies over two hours don't do as well on the platform, Snyder offered to make two movies instead.

The first film was one of 23 to utilize a California Film Commission tax credit, itself estimated to have received a $18,488,000 credit when it went into production in early 2022. It was slotted for 117 days of filming with $83 million in approved spending. Approved spending typically accounts for about two-thirds of a film's total budget, implying the A Child of Fire budget was about $125 million.

According to the October 2021 Production Weekly report, filming began in Inyo County, California. Inyo is a popular filming location, with about 400 films having been filmed there, including the first two Star Wars films.

Marcus Taormina, after working as the visual effects supervisor for Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead, confirmed that he would be returning to do the same for Rebel Moon. Dody Dorn, who edited Zack Snyder's Justice League and Army of the Dead with Snyder in the past, also revealed she'd return as editor for Rebel Moon during an Irish Film & Television Academy event on December 9, 2021.

On February 3, 2022, Production Weekly confirmed Rebel Moon would be released in two parts, filmed back to back from April 18 to November 4 of that year.

On August 15, 2022, frequent The Stone Quarry collaborator, Jay Oliva, confirmed his involvement in the film via Twitter, including that his work had been completed early in the year.

The release date of December 22, 2023, was revealed on January 18 of the same year. Netflix released a promotional teaser for their 2023 movies, finishing with some quick shots from Rebel Moon. Kora was revealed with an additional promo image to coincide with the announcement. Later that day, Tom Holkenborg retweeted an article stating that he would be scoring the movie.

Casting

On November 2, 2021, Sofia Boutella was announced to be starring as the protagonist of Rebel Moon. On February 9, 2022, Deadline reported several more cast members, including Charlie Hunnam, Djimon Hounsou, Ray Fisher, Doona Bae, Jena Malone, Staz Nair, E. Duffy, Charlotte Maggi, and Sky Yang. Shortly after the big reveal, The Hollywood Reporter noted some character details, including the name of Fisher's character, Blood Axe, the name of Hounsou's character, General Titus, and that Bae would be portraying a sword-wielding adversary.

On February 28, 2022, Rupert Friend was announced to be portraying the lead antagonist, who would face off against Boutella's character, and also that Stuart Martin would be playing a secondary antagonist.

On April 8, 2022, Cary Elwes, Corey Stoll, Michiel Huisman, and Alfonso Herrera were revealed to have been cast in the movie in a The Hollywood Reporter exclusive. Elwes would play the king of the galactic empire, while the other three roles were undisclosed.

On May 16, 2022, Deadline reported that Ed Skrein would replace Friend's role as the film's antagonist due to scheduling conflicts. Cleopatra Coleman, Fra Fee, and Rhian Rees were also added to the cast in undisclosed roles.

During Netflix Geeked Week 2022, Netflix revealed that Anthony Hopkins would be portraying JC-1435, a sentient Jimmy combat machine that once defended a slain king.

Filming

While promoting Army of Thieves, Zack Snyder mentioned his plans to start filming Rebel Moon in May 2022. It was later reported in Production Weekly that filming would begin March 1, 2022, and last for six months. They eventually settled on a schedule of April 18-November 4, and began filming on April 19, 2022. Snyder released three photos to celebrate the start of production on April 19, including the first look at General Titus.

On June 25, 2022, Green Meadow Growers posted about their work on Rebel Moon on their Instagram. Their company grows and sells plants at a large scale, at least in part for film production usage. The post included the first clear look at a full ship, the first look at the Veldtian farming village, and a few other photos and videos of the film setup. They later deleted the post.

ZERØ OPTIK produced four custom lenses for the filming of Rebel Moon. RED Digital Cinema similarly invented a new camera sensor for Snyder's previous movie, Army of the Dead, for which ZERØ OPTIK built custom lens housing. RED Digital Cinema released a promotional mini-documentary about their V-RAPTOR XL 8k camera featuring Zack Snyder from the set of Rebel Moon. The video is available in the video gallery below.

Netflix filed for the "REBEL MOON" trademark on November 23, 2022. The trademark may be used on any number of products released in association with Rebel Moon, including action figures, electronics, dishware, books, and special events such as amusement park rides. Products and events were not confirmed at this time.

On the morning of November 29, 2022, Snyder posted on Vero confirming there were two days left of filming. Filming wrapped on November 30, 2022, after 152 days of shooting.

Filming locations

Rebel Moon filmed in several locations around Los Angeles, including Blue Cloud Movie Ranch in Santa Clarita and Gillibrand in Simi Valley. Blue Cloud Movie Ranch contained the Veldt set, which was built outdoors with real wheat crops. Filming took place around the growth of the wheat.

Post-production and release

In an exclusive with Slash Film published on March 24, 2023, Andy Koyama, the re-recording mixer for A Child of Fireand The Scargiver, confirmed that they were mixing audio for four features. Each of the two films would be getting extended R-rated cuts. Then on June 6, 2023, Vanity Fair released an in-depth first-look article featuring promotional stills and photos along with descriptions of many new concepts that hadn't officially been revealed. Among these were brief descriptions of the backstories for several characters and the first look at Ray Fisher's Darrian Bloodaxe, E. Duffy's Milius, Ed Skrein's Admiral Atticus Noble, and better looks at Michiel Huisman's Gunnar, Doona Bae's Nemesis, Staz Nair's Tarak, and the Scribe priests.

The movie received a special early release, going live five hours ahead of the standard 12:00 A.M. PST release of most Netflix projects, making it available on December 21 for many time zones. Zack Snyder and Sofia Boutella hosted a countdown livestream on social media for about 45 minutes before the release. In its first three days, the movie received 23.9 million views on Netflix and easily reached the number one position for that week on the platform, with another 34 million views and an easy top spot again the next week, bringing the total to 57.9 million views in the first ten days.