300 follows the campaign of Spartan king Leonidas against the army of Persian ruler Xerxes I in ancient Greece. The story is told through the voice of Dilios, a Spartan soldier who narrates events from his own point of view. After refusing the Persian demand for earth and water as a sign of submission, Leonidas gathers a small force of warriors and marches to the pass at Thermopylae to stop the invading army. The film mixes a reconstruction of the battle with fantastical elements and a narrator who is not entirely reliable. Beyond the combat, it also shows the political pressure within Sparta, where Queen Gorgo tries to win support for her husband.

How it was made

The project grew out of the 1998 Dark Horse limited comic series by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley. Miller served as executive producer and consultant. The screenplay is credited to Zack Snyder, Miller and Kurt Johnstad. Most of the film was shot with a superimposition chroma key technique, meant to reproduce the look of the original comic panels. Gerard Butler leads the cast as Leonidas, alongside Lena Headey as Gorgo and Rodrigo Santoro as Xerxes, and the film marked the big-screen debut of Michael Fassbender. Tyler Bates composed the score, Larry Fong shot the film and Mark Canton produced it for Legendary Pictures. An unfinished cut premiered at the Austin Butt-Numb-A-Thon in December 2006, and the completed film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2007.

Reception and legacy

Critics praised its striking visual style and action sequences, though several noted that the look of the film took precedence over character development. Historians objected to its inaccuracies, especially its portrayal of the Persians, which some described as Persophobic. The film opened in the United States on March 9, 2007. Its box office total is usually given as roughly 460 million dollars, though figures vary by source, and its opening weekend was the 24th largest in history at the time. It won the Saturn Award for Best Action, Adventure or Thriller Film and the Saturn Award for Best Director for Snyder, a Satellite Award for Best Visual Effects, and the MTV Movie Award for Best Fight. Over time it has become a reference point for comic book adaptations and for the use of chroma keying as a visual language, and it led to the sequel Rise of an Empire, released in 2014.