Zack Snyder on Watchmen and 300 Sequel Details

Posted by dominie in Comics, Films, News on October 2nd, 2008

This week’s Hollywood preview of Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, a film adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ comic series of the same name, proved eventful.  Not only were attendees graced with twenty five minutes of the hit new film, but after the Q&A session, Snyder also revealed secrets behind a 300 sequel/prequel (still to be determined) to IESB’s Robert Sanchez.

First off, highlights from the Watchmen preview from First Showing.  This is not your typical superhero film.  Snyder is able to pull off an all-encompassing story that according to writer Alex Billington may “give The Dark Knight a run for its money.” The current version runs 2 hours and 43 minutes and it looks like chances are slim Snyder will be shaving it down much more.  There will be no sequel or prequel attached to Watchmen, none that Snyder plans to be involved in even if Warner Bros. is silly enough to go forward on such a notion.  Lastly, the trailer for Watchmen will likely be attached to Quantum of Solace, which premieres in just another month’s wait.

Onto to 300 details: Snyder tells Robert Sanchez of IESB, they’re currently waiting on Frank Miller’s completion of the graphic novel before penning any script for the sequel or prequel to 300.  The project will be based exclusively on Miller’s creation; neither Snyder or any others will any have input since the director “wants it to be a creation of Miller’s 100%.” He did reveal the story will be set the year between the Battle of Thermopylae and the Battle of Plataea, the battle described by Dilios (David Wenham) in his final monologue:

“And so my king died, and my brothers died, barely a year ago. Long I pondered my king’s cryptic talk of victory. Time has proven him wise, for from free Greek to free Greek, the word was spread that bold Leonidas and his three hundred, so far from home, laid down their lives. Not just for Sparta, but for all Greece and the promise this country holds.
Now, here on this ragged patch of earth called Plataea, Xerxes’s hordes face obliteration!
Just there the barbarians huddle, sheer terror gripping tight their hearts with icy fingers… knowing full well what merciless horrors they suffered at the swords and spears of three hundred. Yet they stare now across the plain at 10,000 Spartans commanding thirty thousand free Greeks! HA-OOH!”

Judging from this, it seems Dilios may be playing a major role and David Wenham may get his well deserved big break.