Remember 300, Justice League and Watchmen director Zack Snyder's super homoerotic 2007 action flick that launched Scottish actor Gerard Butler's career and sparked the sexual awakening of many young, gay millennials who had a thing for rugged, shirtless Spartan soldiers? Well, as it turns out, a planned sequel was written for the film — and it even featured a gay love story!
In a recent interview with The Playlist, the 55-year-old writer and filmmaker revealed that while the majority of the world was in lockdown during the early stages of the pandemic, he set out to write a third and final movie in the 300 film franchise (an initial sequel, 300: Rise of an Empire, came out in 2014), but while doing so, things changed, and he ended up writing a queer love story between two key figures in Greek history, Alexander the Great and his general Hephaestion.
Unfortunately, Warner Bros. (the studio that distributed 300 and 300: Rise of an Empire) weren't big fans because the film Snyder ended up writing wasn't much of a 300 sequel, but its own, brand new thing entirely.
"Over the pandemic, I had a deal with Warner Bros. and I wrote what was essentially going to be the final chapter in 300," Zack said. "But when I sat down to write it, I actually wrote a different movie. I was writing this thing about Alexander the Great, and it just turned into a movie about the relationship between Hephaestion and Alexander. It turned out to be a love story. So it really didn’t fit in as the third movie."
Though Warner Bros. did just release the long-awaited "Snyder Cut" of Justice League earlier this year on HBO Max, he also revealed that his relationship with the longtime studio is strained, and that might have lead to to Warner Bros. passing on his new 300 script. (Snyder is currently promoting his upcoming film, Army of the Dead, with Netflix.)
"But there was that concept, and it came out really great," Zack continued, about his, as of now, unreleased 300 sequel draft. "It’s called Blood and Ashes, and it’s a beautiful love story, really, with warfare. I would love to do it, [Warner Bros.] said no…you know, they’re not huge fans of mine. It is what it is."
Now that Snyder is working with Netflix, maybe there's hope for his beautiful queer love story to come to fruition?! Who knows what the future holds!
