So with Snyder out as the director, Deadline is reporting that directors Noam Murro (Smart People) and Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan) are Warner Bros. top two choices for the project now retitled to 300: Battle of Artemisia.

The project is said to tell of the history of the “King of Kings” and his rise to power in fifth-century-BC Persia. Supposedly beginning about ten years before 300, the prequel would also offer an opportunity for Gerard Butler to reprise his role as Leonida.

Thoughts?

Source: Collider

Based loosely off of fantasy novels by author Kathryn Lasky, Snyder combines the first three books into this breezy 90 minute film, aiming at simplicity of the language of the novel’s stories that should make for an easy time understanding the story’s myths, rules, and characters. Kudos. Many felt his Watchmen adaptation, while admirably cohesive, was still too truncated. Still, one can’t help but see the story arc as an owl version of A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Legends, dark owl lords, a sweeping, dreamy epic, it’s easy to see a little Luke Skywalker in Soren and Vader in Metal Beak.

But within these conventions, Snyder fills it with some different elements, not seen in talking-animal films. Using the books as a backdrop, as well as having such creatures as the species of owls, Snyder uses and offers us up a world that while feels weird, is equally as unique. I’m sure the story’s simplicity and conventions will turn off some that want something deeper in their fantasy films, but who-who-who are you to be not lost in the visual Thanksgiving feast that Snyder offers? A bar in digital animation has been raised, even if slightly, for realism is echoed here, using the 3D not as a gimmick but a visual device to wrap us up in something that usually isn’t seen in film. It’s a storybook come to life.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The film is currently being written, yet nothing truly official as of now. Snyder also talks about the differences between the two films, if everything goes accordingly: “What I said to the studio is that 300 gave everyone a chance to fight alongside a super warrior, a chance to fight alongside these Spartan warriors that you could never fight against; but Themistocles is different, he is us. It’s much more about the everyman. Themistocles is kind of the father of democracy. It’s much more about these guys choosing. The Spartans are, ‘We fight, we die,’ so that’s an easy choice for them, there’s no surrender. The cool thing about Themistocles and his gang is that it’s way more difficult. Things aren’t as clear or unchallenged. He has to be more political to get everyone to agree. It’s political, in the soap-opera sense of the word. There’s a relationship with Leonidas and well, we’ll see where it all goes.”

While that sounds like Gerald Butler could cameo, Snyder quickly confirms he hasn’t appraoched him yet. Anyone more or less interested in Xerxes?

Source: First Showing

Xerxes is supposedly slated for a 2011 release, with Zack Snyder on board to direct, but if they’re taking their precious time with development it’ll be awhile until we see the big screen translation of this tale. Continue reading on to see what Miller tells us about Xerxes from the LA Times, along with cover art for the upcoming comic.:

Miller said his “Xerxes” will be a six-part tale with each installment released in individual comic book issues beginning next year.

“The story will be the same heft as ’300′ but it cover a much, much greater span of time — it’s 10 years, not three days,” Miller said. ”This is a more complex story. The story is so much larger. The Spartans in ’300′ were being enclosed by the page as the world got smaller. This story has truly vast subjects. The Athenian naval fleet, for instance, is a massive artistic undertaking and it dwarfed by the Persian fleet, which is also shown in this story. The story has elements of espionage, too, and it’s a sweeping tale with gods and warriors.”

“The time frame begins 10 years before ’300′ and the story starts with the Battle of Marathon, which was killer to draw, by the way, even if it was a lot of work,” Miller said. “The lead character isThemistocles, who became warlord of Greece and built their navy. The story is very different than ’300′ in that it involves Xerxes search for godhood. The existence of gods are presupposed in this story and the idea is that he well on his way to godhood by the end of the story.”

Miller added: “With Themistocles I have a character who is almost the dead opposite of Leonidas in that Themistocles was a lying, conniving, brilliant, heroic figure. He was nicknamed ‘The Subtle Serpent’ and he always manages to do the exact right things that will result in him benefiting greatly.”

Snyder is expected to come back and take on the reigns of yet another 300 film, but this time it will be for the sequel entitled Xerxes. Frank Miller, creator of the 300 graphic novel and other properties, is in the middle of developing the story. Last we heard, Miller is also creating a graphic novel that will be in line with the story that will be shown on the big screen.

Snyder spills a bit of what he knows so far on the impending sequel.:

CS: Was “Xerxes” Frank’s idea or was that your idea?
Snyder: That’s all Frank. 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 feel like at this point I’m still waiting to see it, but I’m confident that it’s going to be awesome. 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 want to hear anything about it. They keep wanting to show it to me, and I’m like, “I don’t want to hear about it!” I just want to let Frank do his thing. (laughs) Why do you guys want to mess with him? It’s like crazy… it’s like if you hired an awesome painter (to paint something), you wouldn’t sit over his shoulder and go, “You know, a little more red would be good there. It’s cool if this landscape had more flowers.”

Then the topic changes over to the possibility of 300 being re-released in 3D.:

Not the whole thing. I haven’t seen the whole movie but they’re talking about doing the whole movie. I saw maybe like a ten-minute section that they’d just done. By the way, they did an amazing job. The way we shot it actually, it’s almost like a 3D movie anyway, so it really lends itself to that.

Seeing a sweaty six pack Gerard Butler in nothing but a cloak and a loincloth (practically) in the third dimension? That could get some people’s money right away, that’s for sure. Sucker Punch will be released in regular theaters and in 3D on March 25th, 2011 with Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole coming out this September 24th.

There is one other major question that we have not answered, and that’s if Gerard Butler will be returning to play the role of the courageous and cunning character King Leonidas. Unfortunately the actor will not be returning to reprise his role, but that won’t stop Legendary Pictures from finding another character in Miller’s script to be casted and conquer this feature. Frank Miller is also putting together at the same time a graphic novel that will intertwine the two stories together before the film comes out. Zack Snyder, who originally directed 300 does show interest in helming this prequel but is waiting to see the final results from Miller’s graphic novel and script before he commits.

300 was a fun, action packed romp that really put director Zack Snyder out there in all of our fanboy radars before he was attached to direct Watchmen. The thing is, do you find it necessary for them to continue on with a prequel? Or do you think that they’re cashing in on a cow that’s already withered away and died?

Check out the fantastic trailer below:

Source: You Tube

Source: You Tube

While this sequel could seem to be as valid as a sequel to Titanic, Snyder promises for “bigger visions, though I’d hope for the same aesthetic.”

We’ll see. Greek history is very near and dear to me, and hopefully this sequel doesn’t take the name 300 with it. Focusing on the burning of Athens and the backlash to the Persians the following spring would be stellar. If you’re lost, or want to know more, you can learn about it here.

Source: Superhero Hype

The Mutant Chronicles is a B-movie through and through, filled with all of the components one would expect from such a film, except one key ingredient: fun. Simon Hunter, the director here, goes literally all-out, balls-to-the-wall, for a what sticks type of approach to the film, and it is interesting to see what comes next. From the WWI elements to the futuristic world, The Mutant Chronicles adds creatures, gore, and a John Malkovich cameo, but feels more like a collection of note cards, than fully developed idea.Filmed in that every set is a green screen style recently made famous with 300, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, or Immortal, it certainly adds to the B-movie camp appeal, as it does give the film a certain style that over the course of its 110 minutes, I grew to like. For a world set in 2707, I think with the budget they had and Hunter’s ambition, this approach to making the film works. Not everyone is going to like it. I think most of the sets, or backgrounds, work. They look pretty good, but the one singular element that ruins the film is its poorly (and I mean poorly) rendered gore. Nothing ever beats out prosthetics and good old red colored syrup, and while CG might be quicker, it lacks that visceral punch I think the war scenes needed. Movies like this, a sci-fi war-actioner, are definitely in need of a suspension of disbelief. While I won’t criticize the look as a video game cut scene like most have, the CG bloodletting is Sci-Fi Channel, god awful.

Some of the more interesting ideas weren’t fully explored. I felt there was room to help make this film better, especially with the dynamics between Thomas Jane‘s character, a hell-bent, war ravaged hero, and the faith-based Brother Samuel, played by Ron Perlman. This religious state compiles a group of a Dirty Dozen like soldiers to go on a suicide mission to destroy this “machine” that is 10,000 years old. Alien in origin, it’s creating mutants that are over-running the world, a world even further over-run by war and corporations. Brother Samuel is deeply convinced this team will succeed, based on a “book” and his faith. Jane’s character is a hard-nose son-of-a-bitch: “I don’t get paid to believe, I get paid to f*ck shit up.” I wanted more with this component, but it’s quickly glossed over for gore and action.

That’s perfectly fine, but with all it has, it’s never really fun. How can a film about mutants, war, a futuristic world, and Ron Pearlman, not be fun? Because nothing ever comes together.

With a better script, we would’ve had a rocking genre picture. It’s not totally original, but it feels fresh enough. Crafting some old fashion squibs, eliminating some needless opening exposition, The Mutant Chronicles could have been that cool little flick you’d be telling your buddies about. Unfortunately, despite some tough guy heroics, a neat premise, it gets old before it finishes. 

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Source: First Showing

With no less than 3 hit films under his belt it’s safe to say Zack Snyder is now a bankable director, who can now choose his own projects.

Source: EW

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the world has problems

Dr. Manhattan believes that there is no fate, no destiny, that things happen as they are meant to, and as such it seems like things were happening when it came time to film the un-filmable. The world has become accustomed to seeing film versions of their favorite heroes. Technology has reached a point today, where anything imagined is possible. Projects that seemed too expensive have now reached a point where it is possible to fund an expensive endeavor and make back your investment. Zack Snyder, a promising young director has toyed with big budgets, technology, and has created some visually interesting films, only hindered by simple scripts.

Perhaps matching Snyder’s visuals with a Hugo Award winning graphic novel, once claimed by Time magazine to be one of the 100 best novels written in the 20^th Century, with the current climate of superhero films, everything seemed to have happened in sync with natural gravitation to a center: Watchmen.

Maybe someone’s picking off costumed heroes

Alan Moore is perhaps one of the best writers in comics today. His books are so intimate and complex, it takes more to unweave his narratives and reconstruct them into a cohesive unit. I think this version of Watchmen is the most accessible way to portray a film version of it. Books and films are two different animals; while they can be translated into each other, one must accept the medium’s way of existing to appreciate a translation. Books are as intimate as any medium. A writer can construct a narrative as personal as they wish, but when another writer attempts to adapt it into film, one must understand that the intimacy from the book must be sometimes lost to tell a story through moving images.

David Hayter and Alex Tse, the screenwriters have done a very admiral job of adapting this long, complex, holy grail of comics, into a filmable story. They do make some errors, one that is an unfortunate product of them trying to stick so close to the comic to appease the die-hard fans. It’s the way they choose to adapt the comic pages almost verbatim that is an attempt to please the loyal fans, that makes the film feel so stale at times.

While most of the film is exact in its translation from the page to the screen, the images ring hollow since there’s little straying away and exploring the images further. Allow these characters in this world, an alternate 1985, to breathe and live. They do not, especially in the beginning and only when the picture winds to its climax that it feels alive. It was a Catch-22 for them; stray away and alienate the fan base, or stick so close to please them. They didn’t find that middle ground that could’ve made this picture soar.

Why would I save a world I no longer have a stake in?

Whether Zack Snyder was the right man for the job will be debatable perhaps forever or until the world needs another Watchmen film, but he finds the middle ground between his visual style and the comic panel art by Dave Gibbons. He’s known for his use of slow motion, and in films like his 300, it stuck out as over-stylization. Here it works, and I think it’s because of the superhero action these films need that it works. I’m sure he’ll have his distracters, but his style never outshines the narrative or the characters and it flows perfectly with the images.

For anyone wishing they one day see a movie of Watchmen, I can’t imagine them thinking they get one where the comic panel art seem to be moving. Yes, one credit to the screenplay is the images are like Gibbons art, only with three-dimensionality and real actors.

If Snyder has one hiccup it isn’t visual but audio. His uses of licensed music, “All Along the Watchtower” by Hendrix or “Times They Are A’Changing” by Dylan, are meant to highlight the themes of Watchmen’s world but only aggravate the ears.  Tyler Bates crafted a decent score only served in limited use compared to the music he chose. It underscores some scenes, like Silk Spectre’s and Nite Owl sex scene with “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen.

The world will look up and shout “Save us!”…and I’ll whisper, “No.”

I tend to think of the film like a plastic funnel you use to pour oil into your car. At first, it’s full and thick, unable to go anywhere. The film starts too slow. I know it is setting up the film and its themes, but each scene followed by the next feels too episodic for us to be drawn in. The pacing of everything seems to be off and on. Anytime we’re given Rorschach the film feels alive for a rare time. He’s the star and Jackie Earle Haley shines in the role. Billy Crudup also excels in a pure motion-capture character of Dr. Manhattan. He collects this distance but is totally human underneath the blue CGI. In fact, the cast is all really good, but these two are the stars and excel at it.

As the oil slowly makes its way down the funnel, everything becomes organized much like here; the film seems at peace with itself by the midway point. Everything is starting to align and makes more sense. It was these earlier scenes, too episodic to help the picture than hindered it. By the time oil leaves the funnel completely, everything is clearer and is accomplished. The film by the end does benefit from the time spent setting up the theme and the climax, but it took a while to get there.

Watchmen is as good as it needed to be. It’s not great, but really good. Good enough to please most fans and the average film goer looking for something a bit more than action, but in the end, it failed to show why it’s like the Citizen Kane of graphic novels.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The movie follows a sequence of events that happen after a self-proclaimed and American government promoted hero, the Comedian, is found dead on the concrete directly below his loft. A vigilante by the name Rorschach, a fellow cohort of the Comedian’s back when masked heroes were still excepted as a form of protection in the society, attempts to pull together his old team, the Watchmen, to warn them of their friend’s untimely demise and that they too may be the victim of another insolent killing. Of course, the plot becomes much more complex than I’m letting off, but to honestly put such a brilliancy into words is beyond my capabilities. You simply understand it; never comprehend it.

The one thing that blindsided me and left me staggering was the use of direct quoting from the graphic novel, and also the freeze-frame images. Literally, I could hold my book up to the screen and see the panels coming to life; Rorschach leaping into the comedian’s busted window, Dan Dreilberg’s inner depression swallowing him whole as he sits slumped against the walling of his lair, his costume hanging behind him like an haunting memory after Rorschach‘s unannounced visit, simple things that the normal movie-goer would never take a second glance at leave die-hard fans with their mouths agape and minds blown. The meticulous detail displayed within the movie is astounding. It all looked as if it had been blown up directly from the novel and structured exactly the same 

The opening credits were complete perfection, also. All the background, all the set-up you could possibly need was condensed into an easy to swallow pellet to the tune of “Times are Changing” by Bob Dylan(rightly so). We see the processor’s of The Watchmen, The Minutemen, in action; both their rising and decline in public popularity. It was a seamless  because it never interfered with the rest of the movie; there were no unnecessary cuts to the past to help explain America’s sudden distaste and distrust of masked protectors, it is simply implied.

There is a lot of complaining going around about some of the cuts the movie made that were important within the graphic novel, which is generally expected and accepted with the terms of taking on such an extensive project . I’m honestly very forgiving when it comes to things like this what with a time limit of about three hours to hold a audience’s attention span long enough to get an entire comic book series interpreted into film. Minor character developments and back-story’s that don’t particularly make a difference within the movie is not as blasphemous as it seems. All I have to say on that particular matter other than telling those few whiners to get off their computer and change their shirt and maybe call up Jenny Craig is that, one; the keyword is adaptation. And number two, Synder condensed, flawlessly might I add, an entire graphic novel into, hit or miss, two hours and forty minutes. Pivotal scenes were shown and executed just right and still withheld the true spirit Watchmen has embodied for millions of fans. If that isn’t good enough, then hug your George Lucas pillow, it’s the only comfort you’ll receive.

So, before I start to really gush, let me sum this up. I loved it. I love Zack Synder’s filming style; I felt the dramatic zooming in and out and the slow motion during certain action scenes fit perfectly with the graphic novel’s ambience. He also focused in on the symbolism that needed and used it to his advantage like the infamous smiley face. Not to the point of bashing you repeatedly in the head with it, but enough to help you realize the importance. The ending had me laughing, just like the graphic novel and I stood up from my grimy blue chair blown away and feeling fulfilled. This movie held its own to all the hype it has received and I believe I will need to see it at least five more times before it officially sinks in.

Remember, once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars