While he made his debut with the well-received “Dawn of the Dead” remake, it was a few years later that filmmaker Zack Snyder became known for his style with the film adaptation of Frank Miller’s “300”.
Along with writing and directing that film, Snyder also co-wrote the sequel “300: Rise of an Empire”. Recently he chatted with The Playlist’s The Fourth Wall podcast and revealed that last year during the pandemic he was tasked with writing another “300” sequel.
Snyder started work on it, however the project ended up morphing into something else – an epic romance tale of the love between conqueror Alexander the Great and his male general and close friend Hephaestion. Warners then passed on the project:
“I just couldn’t really get my teeth into it. Over the pandemic, I had a deal with Warner Brothers and I wrote what was essentially going to be the final chapter in 300. 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.
But there was that concept, and it came out really great. It’s called Blood and Ashes, and it’s a beautiful love story, really, with warfare. I would love to do it, [WB] said no… you know, they’re not huge fans of mine. It is what it is.”
Oliver Stone’s 2004 film “Alexander” starred Colin Farrell and Jared Leto in the roles of Alexander and Hephaestion respectively and though acknowledging the relationship, never made it overt like Snyder’s version of the story does.
Whether someone like Netflix, who recently worked with Snyder on “Army of the Dead,” will be interested – we’ll have to wait and see.
