Comic-Con is over, but the buzz for Warner Bros.’ 300 lives on. The film is based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller, the same man responsible for Sin City, Batman: The Dark Night Returns, Daredevil, and a whole lot more in the comic world. As we sat down early on Saturday morning to watch the trailer from the film, we were greeted by Miller, director Zack Snyder, and stars Gerard Butler (The Phantom of the Opera) and David Wenham (The Lord of the Rings triology). 300 is a look at the Spartan soldiers who fought in the ancient battle against the Persians; Butler plays King Leonidas, while Wenham is Dilios, a head soldier in the Sparta Army.
The lights went down and the screen lit up with the amazing trailer from the film. Literally, from the beginning of the footage, I knew this was going to be one of the best presentations from the weekend—and that was confirmed as all of the 6,500 fans inside the San Diego Convention Center looked on in awe. As Frank Miller’s drawings came to life, the crowd cheered.
The trailer ended to thunderous applause—truly, one of the best previews for a film I’ve ever seen. And it was definitely one of the best I saw all weekend. This being my first Comic-Con, I wasn’t expecting what came next. Snyder thanked the crowd and said, “Wow, I’d like to see that again!” And sure enough, they played the trailer again.
After a Q&A with the fans, I had the chance to speak with Snyder about the strong reaction the trailer received. “The whole movie looks like that! Really it’s a selfish movie because I just made a movie that I want to see. I watched it and was like ‘Oh, I love this. It’s awesome!’”
Wenham was thrilled to feel the love from the fans: “These are the people who know the material the most, and then to get that reaction, it makes you happy, indeed.”
To get into character, Butler really had to get in the mindset of a king. “I was always made fully aware that we were going to make this as faithful as possible to the graphic novel,” he said. “One, because it’s completely fantastic; and two, Zach was so passionate about that. It was exciting for me to recreate that character as truthfully as possible and also give him some life, some humanity, and some humor–and some real serious menace.”
Playing the king brought out the best in Butler. “The training I had to put in for this… For me, the harder I could make this for myself, the more sweat, the more blood, the more tears, the more of a Spartan I would become. And that made it easier to stand there and command my men and speak to them in a way I felt I deserved to, and deserve the respect I should get.”
300 will definitely get an R rating, and that’s the way Snyder wanted it and shot it; however, the studio did give him a choice to shoot for a PG-13–“They put it in my lap and they said, ‘You can make a PG-13 movie and we’ll double the budget, double the time, you can hire anyone you want, you can do anything you want as long as it’s PG-13.’ And that was pretty tempting, but no, I’ll make it as an R and f**kin’ take it on the chin like a man. I think once they knew that I would do it for the money, I would try and make it for the cost, they were on board. They never told me to stop and now I ended up with this whole crazy movie.”
300 hits theaters March 16, 2007.
