Zack Snyder’s 300 prequel series is moving again, and it only exists because of a copy of the comic sitting on Gianni Nunnari’s desk more than twenty years ago.
Nunnari produced the 2007 movie. He is also one of the original producers in talks to return for the prequel.
As we reported on Monday, Netflix only came back to the prequel after the success of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, and Paramount’s streaming side is also in talks, per our insiders.
Snyder told the story of how the original got made on July 18, on stage with Frank Miller at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles for the LA stop of Miller’s Push the Wall tour.
Cosmic Book News was in the room.
The Pitch Was Four Words
Snyder said he was taking a general meeting in Nunnari’s office, before he had made Dawn of the Dead, back when he was still just a commercial director being sent around town.
He spotted Nunnari’s hardcover of 300 on the desk and told him he wanted to make it into a movie.
Nunnari asked what his take was. Snyder said his answer was exactly that, which did not land.
So he opened the book to the image of Leonidas at the end, screaming with the arrows coming at him.
“That, but a movie,” Snyder said.
Snyder Was “Literally Petrified” To Meet Frank Miller
The pitch led to a script and some artwork, and then to the part Snyder did not want.
Nunnari told him he had to meet Miller. Snyder replied, “I don’t want to meet him.” Nunnari questioned, “What are you talking about?!”
Miller interjected, joking, “Zack said, ‘I don’t want to meet with any of those scummy comic book writers.'”
Snyder continued, “I was literally petrified… He’s going to f’n eat you for lunch…”
They met at the Four Seasons. Snyder said he told Miller he wanted to make the “comic into a movie exactly as you drew it,” and that he was going to do his damnedest to put it on screen as it is.
Miller asked what else he had done. At that point the honest answer was nothing.
Miller Gave It A Nod Through Nunnari
Snyder said he talked to Nunnari after the Four Seasons meeting.
Nunnari had already spoken to Miller. The word coming back was that if they could figure it out, it could be cool.
That was the green light, such as it was. Then they took it to the studios.
Every Studio Passed Because Of Troy
They took it around to the studios and got turned down everywhere.
The problem was Troy, which was moving at the exact same time.
“We have Brad Pitt for Troy,” Snyder recalled being told. “What is your thing?”
Snyder shot back, “We have this awesome comic book, 300, and we are going to make it look exactly like that.”
His thing was a comic book nobody had heard of. The studios stuck with Brad Pitt, and 300 died on the vine.
I Am Legend Fell Through, And 300 Got Made
Snyder went off and made Dawn of the Dead. When he came back, the studio wanted him for I Am Legend.
Then Will Smith wanted Francis Lawrence, and Snyder was off that one, too.
Snyder said the studio head, Jeff Robinov, felt bad about pulling it and asked him what else he wanted to do. His answer was 300.
“That’s kind of how 300 happened,” Snyder said. “That’s really how it happened.”
Miller, from the chair next to him, said Snyder had just given the room a “mini lesson in how Hollywood works.”
Frank Miller Watched The Test Footage And Said “It Works”
Snyder shot a test for the movie and flew to New York to screen it for Miller in a theater.
Miller said his reaction was two words.
“I just looked at it and I went, ‘it works,'” Miller said, which drew a big applause from the crowd.
What he said he was not ready for was what came after. The book is drawn in a formal fashion, it is set in the ancient world, and it sits in a tradition of movies Miller called pretty stodgy.
What came out was hyperactive and ahead of its time. Miller said that contrast was key to the audience reaction.
Why The Comic Worked As A Blueprint
Snyder credited Miller with handing him a movie that had already been proofed.
He said Miller “beautifully vetted the entire movie” on the page, and compared it to a Broadway show becoming a film.
The play works as a movie because it ran for a decade and every line got tested in front of an audience every night. That was the comic. Every line of dialogue in 300 was already good before a camera turned over.
Or, as Miller put it: by the time Richard Harris got hold of Camelot, they had gotten the bugs out.
Miller Took The Veneer Off Leonidas
This is the part with the most relevance to a prequel series.
Snyder said what got him about Leonidas is that the character is the most serious and most dedicated man in the story, and at the same time has self-doubt, a sense of humor, and genuine loyalty to the men around him. Someone you would actually want to be around.
He said Miller “took off the veneer of pure mythology” and let Leonidas live on the page, and that is what gave him a character to build a movie around.
Miller’s response was that none of that is softening. Those are Spartan traits.
He said the other ancient Greeks noted that the Spartans had “serious wit, and that Spartan wit was the most assertive and most ironic in some ways.”
He also pointed out that Leonidas was a real king of Sparta, and that pinning the history down is hard because, in his words, the Spartans were terrible historians.
That is the exact problem a prequel has to solve, and Miller answered it on stage a month before Netflix came back to the table, with Paramount hot on its heels.
Where The 300 Prequel Stands
Variety first reported the prequel in early development at Warner Bros. Television in May 2024, with Snyder in talks to direct and executive produce alongside Deborah Snyder and Wesley Coller, and original 300 producers Gianni Nunnari, Mark Canton, and Bernie Goldmann in talks to return.
Which means the producer whose desk copy of 300 started all of this is in talks to come back and do it again.
Reportedly, it now has Netflix, a writers room, and Snyder on the pilot.
Per our insiders, Paramount+ is also at the table, and Netflix would not be there without The Odyssey.
300, based on the Frank Miller and Lynn Varley graphic novel, opened March 9, 2007 and grossed more than $450 million worldwide on a $65 million budget. Gerard Butler starred as Leonidas.
The July 18 event also produced Snyder’s “when they let us” line on a Dark Knight Returns movie, which kicked off our run of exclusives on that project, where we are told it’s ready to go, Zack wants both Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill, and it’s fully storyboarded.
