Zack Snyder Addresses Claims That He's "Delusional" After Saying REBLE MOON Would've Made $1.6 Billion

Zack Snyder previously raised some eyebrows when he talked about the success of Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire saying it would’ve beaten Barbie at the box office.

Snyder explained at the time: "Say right now, [Rebel Moon has] like almost 90 million views...80 or 90 million accounts turned it on, give or take. They assume two viewers per screen, right? That’s the math..so that’s 160 million people supposedly watching; 160 million people at $10 a ticket, that’s $1.6 billion."

He added: "[Barbie made $1.5 billion.] So more people probably saw Rebel Moon than saw Barbie in the theater. That’s how crazy Netflix is - that’s the distribution model that they’ve set up."

Snyder was hit with a lot of backlash for those comments and a lot of people believe that the filmmaker is delusional. People pointed out that the math was off and that he is crazy to think that Rebel Moon would ever make that much money. 

Well, the director has addressed those claims that he’s delusional. During an interview with io9, he was asked if he was saying at the time that theatrical distribution is no longer as important as it once was. The question was meant to clarify his comments.

Snyder responded: "Oh, no, I would say it’s kind of the opposite. What I was implying was, well, there are two things. One is I was just going by the numbers that I was given by Netflix. People are like, 'Oh, well, Snyder’s crazy' but literally I just am doing [math] with this, not anything else. If now we’re close to 100 million viewers, 100 million views times two is 200 million views."

He added: "So, people are like, 'Snyder’s delusional,' and I am just like 'I don’t know what to tell you.'"

The director continued: "Who knows what [Barbie’s] done on Max and all that. The cultural significance of Barbie was happening when it was in the theaters.”

He said: “That’s when we all took a bite of the Barbie apple, and happily. And so my only point is that I think there is a theatrical zeitgeist [and] even though maybe more people have eyes on something, the actual sort of cultural significance is dictated still by the theater."

If Rebel Moon had been released in theaters I seriously doubt that the amount of people that watched it on Netflix would have flocked to theaters to pay to watch it on the big screen.

Watching movies on Netflix is just more convenient for people. They are already subscribed to it, something new is released on the platform and people watch it. Had the film been released in theaters, I don’t think it would have come close to those Barbie or Oppenheimer numbers.

What do you think about Snyder’s comments about Rebel Moon and how much it would’ve made in theaters?