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Director Zack Snyder Has Regained The Rights To Blood And Ashes

Rebel Moon director Zack Snyder has revealed that they have regained the right to the script Blood and Ashes, which started as a sequel to 300.



Article Summary

  • Zack Snyder recaptures script rights to what was originally a 300 sequel, Blood and Ashes.
  • Snyder's turbulent history with Warner Bros. culminates in a split post-Justice League.
  • Blood and Ashes could mark a distinct, homoerotic shift in Snyder's storytelling.
  • Netflix's "blank check" to Snyder may finance Blood and Ashes if Rebel Moon succeeds.

There once was a time when the relationship between Warner Bros. and director Zack Snyder was excellent to the point that they let him make his weird little passion project Sucker Punch in 2011. However, over the next decade or so, the relationship between the two would sour for several different reasons. Snyder and his approach to DC characters was not exactly doing well critically or commercially, which caused the studio to try and course correct after the production of Justice League had already begun. Then, Snyder and his family lost their daughter Autumn to suicide and had to step away from the project completely.

The film that ended up in theaters was a pieced-together mess of a movie from Snyder and director Joss Whedon that somehow made the Justice League being on screen, in live-action for the first time, into a non-event. From there, the movement behind the SnyderCut began, and things did not improve with the vitriol pointed straight at Warner Bros. Eventually, Snyder and Warner Bros. agreed to release Zack Snyder's Justice League on HBO Max. However, the project, which cost an additional $80 million to get to the small screen, didn't pull in the astounding streaming numbers everyone wanted, and with Netflix offering Snyder essentially a blank check to go freaking nuts, the two parted ways.

Rebel Moon:
REBEL MOON: (L-R) Director/writer/producer Zack Snyder and producer Deborah Snyder on the set of Rebel Moon. Cr. Clay Enos/Netflix © 2023

Zack Snyder And Expanding Universe Of 300

However, some people forget that the thing that put Snyder on Warner Bros. map in the first place was 300 back in 2006. While his Dawn of the Dead remake did well for Universe, 300 was considered a megahit, bringing in a box office of $456 million on a budget of $60 million. The studio would eventually release a sequel in 2014 that didn't do nearly as well critically or commercially, and Snyder didn't direct that one; he did write it. It turns out, however, that he was working on something else that was supposed to be related to 300 but turned into something else completely.

The script is called Blood and Ashes, and Snyder partially wrote the script while shooting Army of the Dead. The story focused "on the relationship between Alexander the Great and his second in command, Haphaestion. It was a gay love story that was also an ancient Greek war epic, one he said then-Warners executive Courtenay Valenti liked and championed." Obviously, the movie didn't happen, and now Snyder is looking to possibly make it somewhere else, as he explained to The Hollywood Reporter that they got the rights back to the script.

"We got the rights back, so we can make if we want it," Snyder said. "I don't know what the marketplace is for an incredibly homoerotic, super violent, super sexual movie. But maybe it's perfect."

Zack Snyder Regains The Rights To 300 "Sequel," Blood And Ashes
Zack Snyder, Deborah Snyder at the "300: Rise Of An Empire" Premiere at TCL Chinese Theater on March 4, 2014 in Los Angeles, CA. Editorial credit: Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com

The joke could probably be made about how much more homoerotic the 300 movies could get, but that might be some low-hanging fruit. However, as we said, Netflix is giving Snyder a blank check these days, and if Rebel Moon does as well as everyone is likely hoping it will, then maybe Netflix will be the home for this new script.

Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire: Summary, Cast List, Release Date

A new universe awaits on Netflix starting December 22. From Zack Snyder, the filmmaker behind 300, Man of Steel, and Army of the Dead, comes Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire, a 2-part movie event decades in the making. After crash landing on a moon in the furthest reaches of the universe, Kora (Sofia Boutella), a stranger with a mysterious past, begins a new life among a peaceful settlement of farmers. But she soon becomes their only hope for survival when the tyrannical Regent Balisarius (Fra Fee) and his cruel emissary, Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein), discover the farmers have unwittingly sold their crops to the Bloodaxes (Cleopatra Coleman and Ray Fisher) — leaders of a fierce group of insurgents hunted by the Motherworld.

Tasked with finding fighters who would risk their lives to defend the people of Veldt, Kora, and Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), a tenderhearted farmer naive in the realities of war, journey to different worlds in search of the Bloodaxes, and assemble a small band of warriors who share a common need for redemption along the way: Kai (Charlie Hunnam), a pilot and gun for hire; General Titus (Djimon Hounsou), a legendary commander; Nemesis (Doona Bae), a master swordswoman; Tarak (Staz Nair), a captive with a regal past; and Milius (E. Duffy), a resistance fighter. Back on Veldt, Jimmy (voiced by Anthony Hopkins), an ancient mechanized protector hiding in the wings, awakens with a new purpose. But the newly formed revolutionaries must learn to trust each other and fight as one before the armies of the Motherworld come to destroy them all.


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Kaitlyn BoothAbout Kaitlyn Booth

Kaitlyn is the Editor-in-Chief at Bleeding Cool. Film critic and pop culture writer since 2013. Ace. Leftist. Nerd. Feminist. Writer. Replicant Translator. Cinephillic Virtue Signaler. She/Her. UFCA/GALECA Member. 🍅 Approved. Follow her Threads, Instagram, and Twitter @katiesmovies.
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