Army of the Dead director Zack Snyder appears to have come to terms with the fact that he won't be returning to Warner Bros. to helm his Justice League sequels. Why? Well, he's once again sharing his negative experiences working with the studio, this time regarding a planned 300 threequel.
Talking to The Playlist, the filmmaker revealed that he had a pre-existing deal with Warner Bros. to pen the screenplay for another 300 movie, but his take wasn't one they were interested in.
"I just couldn’t really get my teeth into it," he says. "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."
"[There] was that concept, and it came out really great" Snyder added. "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."
Given the negative response to 300: Rise of an Empire, it's easy to see why Warner Bros. was potentially reluctant to make a follow-up that would have primarily been a romance story rather than the action-packed blockbuster they were likely hoping for (there's no reason it couldn't have been both, of course).
In the same interview, Snyder also teased that King Arthur movie he's been working on for a while, and it probably isn't what you were expecting.
"I’m writing a kind of retelling of the Arthurian legend, that’s sort of set in a different place," he explained. "It’s like in the Gold Rush era of America. Kinda weird, but it’s cool and I’m really into it."
Are you disappointed that Snyder wasn't given the chance to make 300: Blood and Ashes?