The most important thing is to believe in yourself. The first step is looking for yourself in the mirror, whispering your most positive affirmation, and going out to capture the world. That must be what Zack Snyder has been feeling for some time now. After some disappointment from the first half of Rebel Moon (the second half is expected on April 19th), he insists we must not get deceived: the film is more successful than the most successful feature of 2023.
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It was within the context of The Joe Rogan Experience (where else?) that Snyder said that more people had watched his Rebel Moon than had watched Barbie. And he gives his reason.
“Let’s imagine Netflix – you want to see Rebel Moon, just push this button. It has approximately 90 million views now. If each viewing has two viewers, that means 160 million people would have gone to see it in cinema. At even just 10 bucks a ticket, that’s… how much? 1.6 billion. So it’s possible that the audience of Rebel Moon outshines that of Barbie in terms of Rebel Moon having been seen by everyone in the capacity oft of auditorium.”
Rebel Moon was on the top 10 most watched English film lists on the site for 4 weeks, reaching 72.9 million views. While it is plausible that even more views have been gained since then, even the validity of Snyder’s 90 million view count is questionable. Two viewers per household is a standard Netflix figure that many articles use however has not been published by the company themselves. This is all plausible, however, it is another issue entirely to state with any degree of assurance that this ‘what if’ would come to fruition.
“Let me put it this way; this is the mad reality of Netflix. There is nothing like their distribution models. I was at a meetup a few days ago where we were talking about Rebel Moon 2, and I remarked ‘No, go watch the first one, do it right now from your phone.’ It’s informative considering it’s not in the theatres. You can watch it any day. This model is different. It’s God damn insane when you take a moment to believe it.”
Snyder also pays attention to the sphere of pop culture and draws attention to Netflix’s possibilities in this area – anything can be made popular by them, be it Formula 1’s documentary or a new film. “If you released it in cinemas, five people would watch it. You show it on TV and 100 million people watch it. It is unbelievable.”
Though such a point of view is to some extent correct, it is important to remember that not all is black and white. A lot of this is down to the algorithm, and critically, the actual viewer of the content. I saw Rebel Moon on a train, and realised that I was not watching the movie almost as much as I would if I were in a cinema. There is a crisis of cinema, that it is just an other content, just a buzz.
“It is a unique approach… providing the audience with one another option. What is Rebel Moon? It’s another IP, right? It is nobody’s business. Just like the one about spaceships, I guess. The barrier to entry is so low that it promotes people to pursue and create more original and weird ideas as well””
If you say so, Zack.