When there first was talk of a follow-up to Frank Miller’s 300, the first image I had in my mind was of Leonidas and his loyal Spartans getting resurrected through some occult ritual for another bloody romp. It would probably be called… 400. Then again, I also had a mental image of a sequel to TAKEN called TAKEN AGAIN where Liam Neeson’s daughter gets kidnapped again while following a band in South America, because she didn’t learn anything from the first movie. C’mon… it practically writes itself!
Anyway, Miller’s got a much better idea to do a prequel titled XERXES that would be ten years prior to 300 and be about the Battle of Marathon instead of Thermopylae. That is, it’ll depict the first Persian invasion of Greece. And it seems like the current situation is that director Zack Snyder’s waiting for Miller finish the comic before trying to make a movie of it.
So spoke Snyder to First Showing…
"I'm waiting on Frank (Miller) for the sequel to '300' and there's a really good chance that will be the thing we do… He's been working hard, so he's supposed to show me something really soon; actually in the next few months, he's going to show me something. There was a big discussion about what we would do for the sequel to '300' and I said, 'I didn't tell Frank what to write the first time, and I'm not telling him what to write this time.’ I'll take it and I'll adapt it and make it into a movie and I'll write a screenplay, but I want him to do whatever he thinks. I'm not going to say I'm 100%, like that's it, but on the other hand, I'm pretty confident it's going to be awesome.”
I don't know how Miller's going to fit a new 300 OGN in with the new SIN CITY OGN, the " Batman vs. al Qaeda" comic and BUCK ROGERS movie he's also doing already, but I'm sure he can pull it off.
There’s also talk that 300 is going to be re-released to theaters in 3D and I’m sure it’ll do gangbusters. I knew the movie was successful, but I didn’t realize until recently that it was something like the seventh or ninth highest-grossing movie of 2007. I’m sure it’ll be released as 300 3D, which my mind instinctively shortens to 300D. I ought to patent that, now. Imagine experiencing in a movie in not two, not three, not even four, but three hundred dimensions. We’re talking sound, depth, width and every other dimension imaginable on top of that. The oily smell of 300 greased-up Spartans will be pumped into the theater, the temperature will rise the further they get to the Hot Gates, electricity will be pumped into the seats, giving you an extra jolt with every clashed blade. Actually, let’s forgo any speculation about what XERXES will be about. I task you, the sensual Comic Vine community, to help me list all 297 other dimensions that 300D can be displayed in. Go!
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Watch out for the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover collection this March - - available for pre-order now on Amazon.com.