Rebel Moon Part 2 Writer Breaks Down The Lofty Plans For Zack Snyder’s Sci-Fi Franchise

Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver picks up after the truth about Kora’s past is revealed when she seemingly defeated The Motherworld soldier, Atticus Noble. More determined than ever to atone for her sins with her quest for redemption, she continues to plan the next steps in protecting the village from The Motherworld with the help of her rebel recruits. However, her pseudo-father, a high ranking member within The Motherworld’s political system, is not done with her and will send a familiar enemy to try and stop her.

Rebel Moon began as Zack Snyder’s pitch for a Star Wars movie, but has grown into his own epic sci-fi universe, exploring themes of redemption and healing while fighting the demons of one’s past as well as the oppressive actions of a tyrannical government. The phenomenal cast of Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver is led by Sofia Boutella, who brings pathos and physicality to her performance as Kora. Netflix will also be releasing a director’s cut of Rebel Moon later this year with new scenes that Snyder cut from the PG-13 versions that were previously released.

Screen Rant interviewed writer Kurt Johnstad about his latest project, Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver. He explained how each of the actors enhanced their performances beyond what was on the page. He also shared the plan for the Rebel Moon franchise, including how he and Snyder hope to expand the world with four more movies, not including the director’s cut coming out later this year.

Rebel Moon Writer Praises Sofia Boutella’s Dedication

Johnstad discussed Boutella’s dedication both in the emotional side of her performance and the physicality she brought to the role. He revealed that she performed the majority of her own stunts and reflected on working with her during Atomic Blonde.

Kurt Johnstad: The first movie is build the team, and you have this kind of outsider, or in the Western mythology, it’d be like the Man with No Name or the Gunslinger to the Clint Eastwood character. The fun of Kora was putting this outsider, having her hidden in a village, running from her past, on the run from the Motherworld, and then allowing her slowly to be revealed.

Certainly in the flashbacks in movie one, and in movie two, you’re going to learn a lot more about Kora, the real tipping point of what got her on the run and why she is the most wanted fugitive in the Motherworld universe. So I mean, it was a great honor. This is a third movie because Sophie and I worked on Atomic Blonde together, and so I was just talking to her and I just said, “Man, I’m so lucky to have done three movies with you.”

I’m a huge fan of hers. She’s so dedicated, and this is really her first time being the lead in a movie. And I think she just carries. As I said to her, and I said to Zack as well, when I saw the movie for the first time, it’s a very hard thing for an actor to bring a character’s vulnerability and being a badass. She threads that needle in such a beautiful way that it was really great. I’m very proud of her performance.

Kurt Johnstad: No, I think it was completely different [from Atomic Blonde]. That was interesting because in that graphic novel, that character is actually a man. I said to Charlize, “Hey, we should gender-flip this and make it a woman. I think it’s more interesting.” And she’s like, “Okay, that’s cool.” And then, early on Dave Leitch is a friend of mine, and he was like, “Hey, I think we’re going to go to Sophia.” I was like, “Oh, man. She’s awesome. She’s amazing.”

She’s only gotten, because of her physicality, her dedication, her discipline as a dancer, and her background. What she did with Kora. I think, out of both movies and 156 days of shooting, she only was stunt doubled for two shots. Every other stunt, she did 99.9% of her stunts. I think only two stunts that they’re like, “That’s too dangerous.” Not to ruin it, but the whole third act of this movie, movie two, that’s her. She didn’t have any doubles on that final, the fight scene with Ed or with Noble. It’s unbelievable.

Noble Is “The Motherworld At Its Extreme”

Johnstad discussed the physicality and menace that Skrein brought to the role of Noble and what the character represents about The Motherworld. He also shared insight into just how different Skrein is from his character.

Kurt Johnstad: He is an incredibly physical actor and an absolute lovely, just a gentleman, the complete opposite of the character; so warm, so open, a family man. I’m a huge fan of Ed. When he was in costume or in wardrobe and he would walk on set, literally, people were like, “Oh, my God. This guy is so scary.” And then you’d see him in the lunch line and he would just be laughing and telling a joke about his kids or talking about what a comic book geek he is and going to Comic Con. He’s a really lovely, lovely guy.

I would say the fun thing about what [Noble] represents is the Motherworld at its extreme. He’s still an instrument of Balisarius. So the guy who’s really the puppet master, Fra’s character. Where we see this going is Kora’s got the receipts on the Motherworld, and she’s going to come for payment pretty quick. So in success, we’re going to tell a pretty fun story, but I think Noble’s done for this one. I think he’s been taken care of.

Rebel Moon Writer Explains Why The Rebels Stand Up Against The Motherworld: ” It’s A Culture Of Destruction And Submission”

Redemption and healing are a huge part of the story arc for the heroes in Rebel Moon, as many of them try to atone for their actions in the past whether they were a part of The Motherworld or feel shame for losing when The Motherworld came for their own homes.

Kurt Johnstad: Zack and I talked about this, there’s this idea that, as human beings, and I’ll just use that term even though we’re talking in the science fiction world, humans, we all have our broken parts and perfection is not required. We’re just trying to figure out ourselves personally or in our family structure or with our loved ones or with our kids. And so, I think that one of those things that the redemption idea was it’s this idea of forgiveness, self-forgiveness is, I think, a big thing.

It’s also this idea of personal trauma. We talked a lot about it as we were writing it, is that if trauma is not transformed in some way, it’s transmitted. So it’s a little bit like throwing a rock in a lake, and it just ripples outward. So if you don’t deal with that trauma and whatever that is, talk about it, work through it, go for a run on the mountains, whatever it is, it’s going to seep out of your pores in your everyday life, and for these characters, and I guess maybe for the audience too.

So I think that that was something that we were really interested in honing in on, is that everybody has a chance to be redeemed, certainly in their arc. I think that all of the characters have that, have something in their past that they bring forward, and they have that trauma or that kind of broken quality, and they all are, as they step forward through this timeline or through these series of movies, that they’re slowly healing themselves.

The trauma they suffered runs deep and becomes a hugely motivating factor in their lives, leading to a willingness to fight in order to protect the innocence of this village, no matter the cost.

Kurt Johnstad: I think that every character in the Motherworld, tentacles have come out and reached out and touched them in some way, if they’ve been exploited by, or if they’ve been enslaved by [The Motherworld].The Motherworld is not a warm, happy, fuzzy place. You see it in certain other parts of the world where it’s like, “Okay, this is not a democracy.” And I think that all of the characters have something that they have either had personal loss or have been redirected in their lives, have lost their freedom, have lost their free will by the shackle or the boot of the Motherworld.

Because really, Motherworld is not a creative culture. It’s a culture of destruction and submission. And so I think that that thing, when they see the innocence, they see the vulnerability of this village, they can take their own personal experience and say, “Okay. If this is the place that I’ve been brought to die, it’s a beautiful place.” Like, “Okay. This is what’s going to happen. I have to stand at this moment and give everything.” And some of them do, and some of them don’t. We get to carry them on.

Johnstad shared insight into Titus how his story ties into the Western inspiration and how Djimon Hounsou incorporated elements of his own culture to make Titus’ journey more touching. He also discussed Tarak’s evolution in the second movie after being so stoic in the first Rebel Moon.

Kurt Johnstad: I think that in movie one and really what happens in Sarawu in movie two, but in movie one, we find [Titus] and he’s really in the gutter. He’s on his last legs, as he was, and he wants to be invisible. He wants to be unknown. This is a movie where he sees the hope of a people, and not only his skill and what he’s capable of tactically as a military person and a leader of people, but it’s really this idea of standing up, liberating the oppressed and standing up for the oppressed in the world.

Djimon did such a beautiful job with his choices as an actor for Titus. It was so interesting to watch him move through the interior quiet spaces, and most of the actors did this and delivered in a way that there’s a real quietness to many of their performances; Nemesis, Doona’s character, even Gunnar, they’re in these reaction shots. They’re expressing so much that literally, and I’ve gone up to them and said, “I didn’t write that.” And they’re like, “Well, you wrote the tone of the scene and I knew where I was emotionally, so I could do that.”

That kind of emotional engine for a movie really pays off. Of course, there’s action sequence and spectacle ’cause it’s Zack and amazing composition, but there’s an emotional current that runs through this. A movie that many of the characters ride along that current on that river, and it’s pretty cool. I was surprised I saw people crying in the movie that were really moved by a few scenes.

The thing that he is good at is he is a leader of men. He understands the burden of command, he understands the loss of losing men in battle. The calculation is, “This is an impossible thing I’m being asked to do. How am I going to beat this? I was one of these people. I know exactly the playbook that they’re going to come, and how do I defend a village of farmers?”

And the fun of it is that then he starts using tactics, deception, and his own military mind to work against a playbook that he was running all the time in the Motherworld, which was just coming in and the scorched earth of taking over a village. So I think that that’s one thing. I really love the idea that it’s this deliberation of the oppressed, which is taking, in a lot of ways, using this idea…it’s like what the Green Berets use. They are called VSO or Village Stability Operations.

They were using it in Afghanistan and certain parts of the world where they come in, and their goal is to be surrounded. You want to be surrounded because then, “Okay, I need to get to the rooftop and I need to fight the fight, and I know the enemy is all around me now. I just don’t know…” Or they’ll try to funnel the direction of the attack in a certain way. So it was super fun just to create that with Zack. And we talked a lot about just inspiration for those things and different techniques. That’s where that came from.

I wrote that up into that scene. So the scene where they tell all their stories, so we know where everybody comes from. It’s a very, in the structure of a Western, we know that that’s the night before battle scene, or everybody around the campfire. We’ve seen those scenes in military movies and Westerns. I’m like, “Okay, we need something structurally in the dramatic structure of this movie. “Who am I fighting with? Why are we fighting?” And one of the things that we knew we also wanted was that gaining of acceptance from the villagers.

And so, Zack was like, “Let’s create a scene really and bring Sam in, the girl in the village from the first movie where she was attacked in the granary.” She’s such a beautiful actress and gives such a great performance. We were like, “Let’s tie in some of the Veltian mythology and the culture of her.” She’s sewn these banners of war, which is a little bit of a tip not only to Seven Samurai, which has the banners and the Samurai movies, but also to personalize them that everyone gets from her first impression when they rode in; he is the mountain, she is the wolf, Nemesis is a raging storm.

And to really humanize the villagers and their acceptance of these outsiders and the warriors, they’ve worked in the fields, they’ve brought in the harvest, and now they’re really going to be fighting as a unit to save themselves. So Zack actually wrote the banner scene, and then Djimon, from what I remember, was like, “I can sing in my native language.” That was all improv, and it was awesome.

You could have heard a pin drop on that set, and it was amazing. With such vulnerability, he just goes up there, and he’s like, “Okay, I’m ready.” It wasn’t scripted, and Zack just shot it.. There were probably, I don’t know, 75 people, actors, on that set, and they were just speechless.

Staz was so serious in movie one, you’re just like, “Jesus, I hope you find your shirt, wherever that is.” But there is this really interesting thing for him, his character has this guilt of leaving his world, being on the run, not protecting his family, and protecting his culture from the Motherworld. But ultimately, he’s one of the most fierce guys out there.

And when he starts really getting after it, you’re like, “Oh, man. I want to watch this.” But he also has this real kind of disarming, I wouldn’t say comedic side to him, but he has this very approachable, disarming side to him as well. Certainly, within his relationship with Milius and some of the villagers you get to see, and Titus. There are moments where you’re like, “Oh, they’re starting to trust one another. They’re starting to talk sh-t to one another,” or, “There’s a little bit of a banter happening.”

Some of that was written, and then some of that was literally you’re 150 days into it, it’s 120 degrees out in Santa Clarita, there’s rattlesnakes everywhere, and you’re just trying to get the pages done every day. Some of it was just everybody is enduring these two movies being shot back-to-back. Everybody went through this interesting gauntlet together, this crucible really of creativity, which is fun.

“We Want To Give The Fans Six Movies Or A Trilogy, Two Parts Each”

Johnstad explains how the R-rated director’s cuts of Rebel Moon, which is being released later this year, will include different scenes and perspectives. It seems like this version may be closer to what he and Snyder originally had in mind when working on the movie. He also explained how Rebel Moon has been conceived of as a trilogy, with each movie broken into two parts. Johnstad also reflects on how rewarding it has been to work with Zack.

Kurt Johnstad: So each movie is about an hour longer. It’ll be a different rating. It’ll be an R rating. I can’t tell you when, but it’ll be sometime this year, probably in late summer or fall, from what he’s told me the movies are going to come out. In that extra hour of content per movie, there are different entry points certainly for Noble and they’re a very different movie.

Some of the plot is the same, but even if you’re looking at it, and he and I were talking about this, and we talked in a panel about this in LA just recently, so this isn’t new news, but you might do a take in a scene and there might be ten takes. One take might be in the PG-13 version, but it’ll be a different take in the R-rated version because of the intensity, or it’ll be more violent, or the tone will be different. So the experience will be a very different experience.

I said this the other night is, that’s the genius of Zack that I was watching the scope and scale. I’ve known him a long time, like 30 years we’ve been friends and working together. He’s holding in his head, as all directors have to, not just two movies. He’s holding four movies in his head; the pacing, the cut, the angles, the composition, he’s shooting it, the lighting, and he’s holding all of those takes in his head thinking, “Okay, that’s the one for the R-rated. Okay, now I need an alternate for something. I need to bring that down a little bit in a performance.”

So he would do these variations. It’s hard enough to make one movie, and it’s a miracle that any movie gets made, good or bad, whatever. I’m a huge fan of movies, but to hold four movies in your head at one time, it’s like the crazy superpower that he has. I don’t know how he does it.

Basically, we have everything mapped out for many, many movies. So beyond three, beyond four. We figured this out all the way to movie six. Now, if we are so lucky and fortunate enough to continue telling these stories that is our hope. Netflix is interested, and we’re waiting to see how these first movies go. But I think that there is certainly a treatment for three and four.

All we have to do is start writing. And Zack has actually started writing because he’s like that. I think he’s already written the first 30 pages of movie three. So once we get the green light to start writing, if that happens, it’ll happen fairly quickly ’cause Jay and I and Zack are pretty fast. We’ve done all the work. It’s not like we’re like, “Well, what about this?” We know exactly what we need to do.

This was always going to be a trilogy. This is well known. We’ve talked about this in the press already. When we delivered the first movie, it was 200 plus pages, and we’re like, “Oh, my God.” And then we tried cutting it back to 135, I think, and we just started cutting all of the cool character stuff. Zack’s like, “We need to go back… How do we do this?”

I think collectively we said, “You know, if we write around here 90, if we wrote another…” We wrote a cliffhanger, which would be, in movie one, the Gandaball scene. That is in movie one. If we wrote that, then we could break this into two parts.

So really, when I say six movies, it’s a trilogy with each movie being two parts. That’s how we’re thinking of it now. But again, a lot of things have to happen for that. Our ambition and what we want to give the fans doesn’t always match up with the reality of the economy of the world. But that’s what we want to do. We want to give the fans six movies or a trilogy, two parts each.

I’ve written a lot of movies with Zack, he’s an old friend. He’s a dear friend. Anytime the phone rings, and it’s him, I’m going to pick up and I’m going to say yes. To continue to have success with friends, I’m incredibly fortunate. I’ve had success working with other directors and other people, and had a very good career for 20 years of movies that haven’t been made that are just great movies that maybe will see daylight, or maybe it’ll have made me a better writer and a better storyteller.

But working with Zack is an absolute honor, he’s a brother, and it’s really a special time that I don’t take for granted. I think that we’ve shared a lot of the highs. We’ve certainly shared the tragedies and losses in our lives, and so, just as human beings and as artists. I think that to be creating with somebody who’s also really open-armed. He’s incredibly gracious and giving and will try anything. If it makes it better, great, and it doesn’t have to be his idea.

He could be hearing an idea from a grip on the set, just saying, “Hey, look at this. Look at the way the light’s coming.” He’s like, “Oh, my God! Put a camera down there.” I’ve seen him do that where he’s not so myopic and focused on his vision where he’ll be open to a suggestion, and he’ll try something. I think that kind of flexibility is rare, certainly rare at the scope and scale in which he paints a canvas. Any movie’s hard to make, but to do it at this level and to be a part of it, it’s a big undertaking and it’s a grind, for sure.

About Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver

Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver’ continues the epic saga of Kora (Sofia Boutella) and the surviving warriors as they prepare to sacrifice everything, fighting alongside the brave people of Veldt, to defend a once peaceful village, a newfound homeland for those who have lost their own in the fight against the Motherworld. On the eve of their battle the warriors must face the truths of their own pasts, each revealing why they fight. As the full force of the Realm bears down on the burgeoning rebellion, unbreakable bonds are forged, heroes emerge, and legends are made.

Check out our other Rebel Moon Part Two interviews here:

• Zack Snyder
• Sofia Boutella & Michiel Huisman
• Ed Skrein & Fra Fee