Warner Bros. Offers 300 Sequel to Guy Ritchie

Go to the link and read the comments if you want another view/opinion/supposedly inside scoop on this:


http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/02/warner_bros_offers_300_sequel.html

Warner Bros. Offers 300 Sequel to Guy Ritchie

If you’re like most of Vulture readers, you don’t need us to tell you that Xerxes the Great was the fourth Zoroastrian king of the Achamenid Empire. Du-uh. But what you do need your Vulture editors to tell you is that Warner Bros. has offered Xerxes — the sequel to Zach Snyder’s epic 300 — to none other than Sherlock Holmes director Guy Ritchie.

Like 300 before it, Xerxes is based on one of Frank Miller’s graphic novels and had been developed by Snyder, who'd planned to direct his own script. So what gives?

One theory is that Warner Bros. needs Snyder to bear down on Superman stat: Insiders say the closely-guarded script for Superman suffers from major third-act problems, and the studio faces a ticking clock on that franchise, legally speaking; if a Superman film isn’t in production by 2013, Warner Bros. loses the rights to the entire Superman franchise and would have to re-license it from its original creators — the estates of Detective Comics writers Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster — at great if not prohibitive expense.

But there’s another theory: At a recent Warner Bros.—conducted audience research screening of Snyder’s Sucker Punch, the film tested poorly. Says one insider familiar with it, “It was bad; like, really bad. They’re [Warners brass] really not happy with it over there.”

That, plus with Snyder’s last two films (Watchmen and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole) having under-performed, some insiders posit that offering Ritchie Xerxes means that Warner’s ardor for all things Snyder may be cooling just a bit.

Regardless, we’re pleased that Xerxes (a.k.a. King Ahasuerus) is heating up — and just in time for Purim! We have only one question: Cherry or apricot hamantashen, Guy?

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I LOVE the Superman franchise, but that last film was like...WHAAAAT???

I would rather see an 'older' Supes, even though I think Henry Cavill will be the perfect 'new' Superman. He should have been the last one.

That being said, I love Zack's work since "300", and although I like some of Ritchie's stuff (loved Sherlock), I have a hard time dealing with the fact that Zack's not going to have time to do the prequel. Oops, "Xerxes" I mean.

And even more to that, we know Gman loved the idea of working with Zack. Even though Gman's worked with both Ritchie and Zack, would he do a little stint in the film without Zack?

Just things I've been thinking about since I heard this news.

Who to believe now?

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/02/16/300-sequel-xerxes-guy-ritchie-zack-snyder/

Feb 16 2011 09:34 PM ET

'300' sequel scoop: Guy Ritchie NOT directing
by Adam B. Vary

Guy Ritchie will not be directing Xerxes, the sequel to the 2007 surprise blockbuster 300, a Warner Bros. spokesperson tells EW. Reports that the Sherlock Holmes director had been formally offered the job are “an erroneous rumor,” according to the rep.

300 director Zack Snyder, meanwhile, is currently occupied working on the new Superman movie, which is due to start shooting this summer and hit theaters late next year, effectively preventing Snyder from taking the directing reigns of Xerxes until 2012. Whether Xerxes could hold until Snyder would be available is unclear: The project — based, like 300, on a Frank Miller graphic novel — remains in active development but has not yet been greenlit.