Is Zack Snyder’s ‘Rebel Moon’ a hit with audiences? Thus began the science fiction epic on Netflix

In terms of advance attention, it is perhaps the largest Netflix launch in history. Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon – Part 1: Child of Fire” aims not only to create a “Star Wars” of its own, but also to become a huge mega-hit for the streaming service after being somewhat rare in 2023 the film sector. Never before has a film been advertised so massively on its own platform to convince as many customers as possible. But at the same time, there was a lot of criticism before the start – it even led to negative reviews. Would this put the public off? Or would it turn on?

Now there are the first figures, which provide evidence, but also leave questions unanswered. Let’s start with the facts before we move on to their interpretation.

“Rebel Moon” starts at number 1…

According to Netflix’s official release, “Rebel Moon – Part 1: Child of Fire” received 23.9 million views during the week of December 18-24. This is ahead of “Leave The World Behind” (19.7 million views), which has been available for quite some time. the most watched Netflix title of the week. However, that was to be expected. Anything else would have been a disaster for the streaming service.

A comparison with other reboots this year is more interesting. For example, the aforementioned ‘Leave The World Behind’ started with 41.7 million views – well ahead of ‘Rebel Moon’. Films like the action films ‘Extraction 2’ (42.8 million views) and ‘Heart Of Stone’ (33.1 million views) or David Fincher’s ‘The Killer’ (27.9 million views) also started significantly better than ‘Rebel’ ‘Moon’.

All these numbers are quite comparable because the numbers mentioned also started on Friday and therefore had the same time to accumulate views in the launch week. Strictly speaking, the other films we mentioned even had five hours less time because Netflix released ‘Rebel Moon’ earlier than is usual for the streaming giant.

…but these are far from fantastic figures

The comparisons show that ‘Rebel Moon’ starts well, but is far from a great success with the audience. The question is: what are the reasons for this? Christmas could definitely play a role. In some countries (such as Germany), December 24 is Christmas Eve, a day when streaming is significantly less. However, it is doubtful whether this is sufficient to justify the enormous differences compared to, for example, ‘Leave The World Behind’.

The lack of a superstar who appeals to a broad audience can be a problem. Because ‘Rebel Moon’ has a top-notch cast, including Charlie Hunnam, a very popular former series actor (‘Sons Of Anarchy’, ‘Queer As Folk’), but not a true superstar of the caliber of Dwayne Johnson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ryan Reynolds, Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts.

Rebel Moon – Part 1: Child of Fire

Starting date
December 22, 2023
|
2 hours 13 minutes

By
Zack Snyder

Of
Sofia Boutella,
Charlie Hunnam,
Ed Skrein

User rating

2.8

Movie releases

1.5

On power

We also believe that negative voices turn some people off – and not just bad reviews from professional film critics. Despite some enthusiastic responses, audience feedback has been largely mixed. With major online portals such as And There are really bad average reviews. Average and negative reviews also predominate on our site. Even on where according to research in the beginning there was most likely a huge campaign from Zack Snyder fans to push the film with the highest ratings, the so-called “audience score” has now dropped significantly and now ranks as the second worst value in the world . film career also director.

‘Leave The World Behind’ overtakes ‘Rebel Moon’.

But you can’t write off Zack Snyder’s epic sci-fi debut just yet. Views will increase in the second week. After all, seven full days count for the statistics – and not just three as at the start. Anything less than 40 million views in week 2 would be a disappointment. Should the film reach that number, an assessment of audience interest will depend on how well the film performs in the coming weeks.

But it’s already clear that ‘Rebel Moon 1’ is not the big Netflix film hit of 2023, but possibly the already mentioned ‘Leave The World Behind’. The film has a realistic chance of entering the streaming service’s official top 10 all-time rankings in the coming weeks and even becoming the most-watched Netflix film of 2023. Currently this is “The Mother” with Jennifer Lopez” (136.4 million views in first 91 days) ahead of “Extraction 2“ with Chris Hemsworth (134.9 million views). “Leaving the world behind“ has 106.3 million views after 17 days, so there are still more than ten weeks to catch up. According to statistics, which only look at the first 91 days after release, the most watched film in the world by a wide margin is “Red Notice”. The action comedy, starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot and plenty of star power, has 230.9 million views.

By the way, ‘Rebel Moon’ will continue on Netflix on April 19, 2024. Then “Rebel Moon – Part 2: The Scar Maker” begins. A first trailer has already been released: