Tonight, we dine in hell!
300, the latest movie to be adapted from Frank Miller's iconic graphic novels, is a visual tour de force that has already got the critics salivating.
Virgin Media recently got the chance to attend a 300 Q & A session with a difference: it was a virtual press conference, staged within 3-D digital world Second Life. In attendance were Frank Miller, director Zack Snyder and key cast members, all through the medium of Second Life on-screen characters called 'avatars'. Lena Headey, who plays Queen Gorgo, was particularly taken with her avatar and its "rather large boobs"! No doubt, it was one of the strangest events VM has ever attended but nevertheless, it was a great opportunity to chat to Miller, Snyder et al without shelling out on a flight to LA.
VM: Frank, are you pleased with this adaptation? Is it the film you had in your head when you drew the graphic novel?
Frank: Yes and no. I never actually had a film in my head when I drew it. This is all Zack’s fault! But seriously, I’m overjoyed. He’s taken 300 somewhere else and made it even more powerful.
Zack: Frank’s work is so intense, and people want that if they see a film of Frank’s stories. They want to be dragged into his vision.
VM: How influential has the internet, and sites like Second Life, been in the promotion and marketing of 300?
Zack: 300 has really been taken by the internet community. In a lot of ways, it was them who sold the movie to the world in a manner I don’t think has really happened before. It seems like an innovative way to market films and provides a great place just to talk about films.
VM: Gerard, you looked like you may have been working out a tad for your role of Leonidas!
Gerard: From the day Zack and I met, 6 months before the film started, I was thrown into a heavy training regime. It worked out well in the end but it was intense. The main things was trying to take on the whole aura of being a Spartan – and trusting Zack would not make me look like an idiot when he put the background in... like I was fighting penguins or something.
22nd March 2006
