Zack Snyder claims Warner Bros. passed on his ‘gay’ idea for a third 300 movie

Zack Snyder has revealed he penned a 300 movie, featuring a gay love story, but Warner Bros. turned down his idea.

The director and screenwriter, who co-wrote and directed the first installment in 2006 as well as co-wrote and produced the sequel, 300: Rise of an Empire, in 2014, said in a new podcast that the studio asked him to come up with the final chapter.

But Snyder, 55, admitted ‘I just couldn’t really get my teeth into it’ while he was writing during the coronavirus pandemic, and ended up going in a direction that Warner Bros. weren’t really into.

‘When I sat down to write it, I actually wrote a different movie,’ he said on The Playlist’s The Fourth Wall.

‘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.’

Snyder said he realized his vision didn’t really fit as the third movie in the series but he was still excited to bring it to the table. 

‘There was that concept, and it came out really great. It’s called Blood and Ashes and it’s a beautiful love story, really, with warfare,’ he said. 

‘I would love to do it, [WB] said no … you know, they’re not huge fans of mine. It is what it is.’

Snyder made the jump to Netflix with his recent zombie flick Army of the Dead, ending his 15-year relationship with Warner Bros., temporarily at least.

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin born filmmaker has said he hopes that Warner Bros. listens to the ‘massive fandom’ calling for him to make more DC movies.

The director thinks it’s unlikely he’ll make another DC film, having previously helmed Justice League and Man of Steel, but Snyder suggested that the studio could ultimately bend to fan pressure.

He told Jake’s Takes: ‘I don’t know what could be done as you go forward other than, I think the fan movement is so strong and the fan community is so – the intention is so pure – and I really have huge respect for it.

‘I would hope that cooler heads would prevail with them and that they would see that there’s this massive fandom that wants more of them, but who knows what they’ll do.’

Snyder recently admitted he feared he would be sued by Warner Bros’ over a campaign to release his version of Justice League.

He was at the helm of the superhero blockbuster until May 2017, when he stepped down to mourn the death of his daughter Autumn, and he was replaced by Joss Whedon, who changed the tone of the film.

A huge #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign was subsequently launched, featuring billboard adverts and planes flying banners, and though the director came out in support of the idea, he never expected anything positive to happen.

He said: ‘I was more worried the studio would sue me. Do something to silence me.’

Although some elements of the campaign led to in-fighting, Snyder – who released his version of the film earlier this year – will always be grateful for what fans did.

He said: ‘Here’s the reality. That fandom raised $750,000 for suicide prevention and mental health awareness. They’ve saved lives. That’s a fact. But on the other hand, was it fun to provoke them? For a clickable thing? Yes. And they were an easy target. But they continue to raise money.

‘There are not a lot of fan communities whose primary objective, other than seeing work of a guy they like, realized their other main thing was to bring awareness to mental health and suicide prevention. For me, it’s kind of hard to be mad at them.’