By Jason Apuzzo. • Frank Miller releases first artwork for Xerxes, his follow-up to 300; also discusses 300 controversy with the LA Times. 2007 film 300 was a watershed film in much the same way Mel Gibson’s Passion had been three years before. Xerxes begins 10 years before 300 and kicks off with the Battle of Marathon. The new story’s POV shifts from Spartans to the Athenians. More from Miller:
“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.”
Story’s lead characters are Themistocles (builder of Athenian navy) and Xerxes, whose quest for godhood drives the story. Xerxes climaxes with massive naval confrontation between Greeks and Persians, ends on the same day as the events of 300. It sounds fantastic. Best wishes to Frank on this.
• James Cameron meets with feds to brainstorm over oil-spill cleanup. Cameron has, admittedly, spent a great deal of time at the ocean depths working on The Abyss, Titanic, Aliens of the Deep, Ghosts of the Abyss – not to mention the ‘seminal’ film Piranha 2: The Spawning, which finally gets a Criterion DVD and Blu-Ray release next month. Just kidding. [But you weren’t sure there for a moment, were you?]
• Transformers 3 filming extensively around LA, according to the LA Times. It’s amazing that having a major film shoot in Los Angeles is actually a news story these days. That’s how bad it’s getting, folks.
• The Hollywood Reporter asks whether moviegoers may be getting tired of sequels. Um, yeah.
• Samuel Jackson/Carrie-Ann Moss terrorist thriller Unthinkable does the unthinkable and goes straight to DVD. Very surprised by this. The trailer certainly looked compelling in a 24 sort of way. Why does this film get canned, but The A-Team gets released?
Paz da la Huerta is apparently the latest actress to figure this trick out, both for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and the Sundance hit Enter the Void and a string of other films. Extraordinary that these long-hidden secrets of showbiz success are finally getting some attention!
And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood …
I’m excited about seeing “Xerxes” made into a film, but they should work in more scenes with Gerard Butler as Leonidas because he was the main reason for success of the last film “300.” “Xerxes” looks interesting, but I don’t know if people will be as interested in a sort of decadent figure like him, as opposed to someone who has the traditional masculinity of Gerard Butler. More of Gerard Butler please! We women don’t have much in the way of traidtional masculinity in the theaters nowadays … Please, no more Tobey Maguire/Jake Gyllenhaal/Orlando Bloom … they cannot carry a film … they look like they should be working in a hair salon …
Bring it on! I’m really excited about this. They have to make this, and let’s pray they don’t cave to the Iranians and make it all PC.