Zack Snyder Calculates His ‘Rebel Moon’ Earned More Money Than ‘Barbie’: “That’s 1.6 Billion”

Director Zack Snyder made a bold claim in a guest appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience. Snyder shocked listeners when he said more people probably viewed his film Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire than Greta Gerwig‘s Barbie.

Part one of Rebel Moon debuted on Netflix in December of last year and quickly gained the attention of sci-fi and fantasy fans.

How many people actually tuned in to Rebel Moon is unclear due to Netflix’s distribution model, but Snyder guessed that the film garnered 80 to 90 million views.

“Eighty or 90 million accounts turned it on, give or take. They assume two viewers per screening, right?” he asked Rogan, per Variety. “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.”

He continued, “That’s 1.6 billion. So more people probably saw Rebel Moon than saw Barbie in the theater, right?”

Barbie premiered in July 2023 and became the highest-grossing film of the year after earning a $1.4 billion box office internationally. If Snyder’s math checks out, it is possible that Rebel Moon could have had more viewership than Barbie.

Snyder insisted that he still loves Barbie despite a line in the film that pokes fun at him. During America Ferrara‘s monologue, a Barbie played by Alexandra Shipp describes her journey in the fictionalized patriarchy as “A dream where I was really invested in the Zack Snyder Cut of Justice League.'”

Synder told Rogan, “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.”

Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire is now streaming on Netflix. A sequel to the film is expected to premiere on Netflix in April.