Zack Snyder Explains How Netflix’s Rebel Moon Outsold Barbie’s Incredible Box Office

Zack Snyder has been doing his sums, and believes that more people have watched Rebel Moon on Netflix than went to see Barbie in theaters. According to the director, the first part of his sci-fi epic has probably outsold the Greta Gerwig-directed blockbuster if it was considered in like-for-like terms.

Rebel Moon

1.5/5

Release Date

December 22, 2023

Studio

Grand Electric, The Stone Quarry

Tagline

War comes to every world.

During a lengthy conversation with Joe Rogan, via Variety, Snyder spoke fondly about Netflix’s reach with the public compared to film studios. According to the filmmaker, after crunching his own numbers, he believes that more people saw Rebel Moon at home than Greta Gerwig’s Barbie in movie theaters.

“You think about Netflix, for instance, where you push a button. ‘Rebel Moon,’ right? Say right now it’s almost at 90 million views, right? 80 or 90 million accounts turned it on, give or take. They assume two viewers per screening, right? That’s the kind of math. So you think if that movie was in the theater as a distribution model, that’s like 160,000,000 people supposedly watching based on that math. 160,000,000 people at $10 a ticket would be…what is that math? I don’t know. 160,000,000 times ten. That’s 1.6 billion. So more people probably saw ‘Rebel Moon’ than saw ‘Barbie’ in the theater, right?”

Rebel Moon Performed Well on its Debut Despite Negative Reviews

When Rebel Moon premiered on Netflix, the film entered the platform’s Top Ten as the most-watched title on the streamer, having been viewed 23.9 million times. In its second week, when it was again the most-watched Netflix title from Dec. 25 to Dec. 31, the film secured 34 million views, marking an increase of 10.1 million views. That being said, it should be noted that Rebel Moon dropped out of the US Netflix Top Ten list completely following its initial holiday surge. Snyder may be seeing continued impressive numbers, but since streaming figures are kept mostly under wraps, casual viewers don’t get to see the full data.

Snyder, who worked with Netflix previously on Army of the Dead and Army of Thieves, continued to stress that what makes the platform so impressive is that it’s a machine that allows viewers to watch their content whenever and wherever they want.

“That’s how crazy Netflix is. That’s the distribution model that they’ve set up. I was at this thing the other day and we were talking about ‘Rebel Moon 2.’ And they were like, ‘Well, talk about “Rebel Moon” the first one.’ I’m like, ‘No, go fucking watch it. I know you have it at your house.’ It’s not like a theater situation. You could turn it on your phone right now and watch it right here if you wanted. That’s how crazy it is. This model, this machine they’ve built is really something else. It’s really crazy if you think about it.”

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Barbie was the certified box office smash of 2023 with a gross of $636.2 million at the domestic box office and $1.4 billion worldwide. In addition to being a financial success, the film also scored with critics, securing an 88 percent on Rotten Tomatoes on its way to eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Rebel Moon, on the other hand, can’t claim the same critical success, even if Snyder thinks more people watched it. The movie currently sits with a poor 21 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Despite his comparisons, Snyder expressed again on Rogan’s show that he “loved”Barbie and even enjoyed a line in the film where writers Gerwig and Noah Baumbach took a shot at the toxicity surrounding Zack Snyder’s Justice League. In the film, a Barbie played by Alexandra Shipp, following America Ferrera’s now-viral feminist monologue, describes her time under the patriarchy by saying, “It’s like I’ve been in a dream where I was really invested in the ‘Zack Snyder Cut of Justice League.'” For Snyder, it was all in good fun.

“That is a line in that movie, literally. And I’m like, that’s awesome. My wife was like, ‘That’s cool, right? That’s cool that they came after you.’ I was like, that’s 100% cool.”