300 was such a surprise when it became a hit, that I think it's taken a while to realize just how big an impact the reinvented sword-and-sandals impact has had. Not only has that style of half-CGI, half-live action filmmaking taken over in all kinds of quarters, but it has seemingly permanently transformed the genre it was inspired by to begin with.
Take Peter Berg's planned update of the Hercules stories, to be based on the Radical comic book series Hercules: The Thracian Wars. Radical president Barry Levine talked to MTV today about how the movie will go forth, and he pretty much couldn't stop crediting Zack Snyder for the inspiration.
“What would have 300 been without Zack Snyder? He gave it a stylization. There were no stars. There didn’t need to be. If you have taste and you stay true to the concept and the characters, there’s a lot of embellishment you can do.”
Levin talked a lot about how the story is set in a more realistic world than many Greek myths, absent fantastical creatures and 100-year journeys. Check out MTV's interview, and prepare for the next generation of ancient epics-- likely without a single chariot race in sight.
