I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that 300 is THE movie topic of the moment. While most films disappear after their opening weekend, Zack Snyder’s take on Frank Miller’s version of the Battle of Thermopylae has really entered the popular consciousness in a way that fewer and fewer films do these days. It’s a water cooler topic, it’s a pundit topic, and it’s even earned the enmity of Iran. And on top of that, the film has continued to perform all week, pulling in between 5 and 7 million dollars every weekday this past week, and it’s poised to be number one again this weekend.
So how do you capitalize on that? This is the 21st century, after all, and if it can’t be franchised, we don’t want to know about it. But when your film has just about all the main characters biting the dust, you’re left with what they’re now calling The Departed Dilemma. While working the junket circuit, producer Gianni Nunnari mentioned that there was a way to do a sequel, but never mentioned what the concept would be. I kind of assumed that it would 300: The Final Battle Against Xerxes or some such shit, the kind of thing that just wouldn’t be that interesting. But now, an article in Variety (which covers essentially the same ground, and makes the same conclusions I did last week in Go Tell The Spartans) reveals another bit of the puzzle:
“Miller is also prepping a follow-up to "300" based on another mythic tale from Greek history, but he won’t divulge details.”
Now, I don’t know enough about Greek history to know what story would appeal most to fascist dreamer Frank Miller, so I leave it up to you guys to try and guess what that could be. Whatever it is, this is interesting… could 300 become a sort of franchise of Greek hyperhistory?