When Zack Snyder looks at Emanuel Leutze’s well-known painting, Washington Crossing the Delaware (pictured above), he sees the potential for a 300-style movie about the president’s life, packed with action movie trappings. Oh, also, Zack Snyder owns a print of this painting, and this movie idea is not a joke — it’s an actual plan. Snyder told Bloomberg,
We were talking about it. The first thing we asked was, well, how are we going to make it look? I pointed at this painting. It looks like 300. It’s not that hard.
It’s a silly idea, sure, but I could see it working out well. Out of all the founding fathers, Washington might be one of the most heavily mythologized — aside from Lincoln, but we’ve already run the gamut with that guy, from serious fare like Lincoln to silliness like Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. When it comes to Washington, there’s already a ton of material to use, to the point where I’m surprised no one’s tried this idea before.
First of all, the inspiring painting in question is already historically inaccurate — mostly because it’s been exaggerated for dramatic effect, just like an action movie would be. (The ice, for example, would have formed in sheets rather than the little icebergs in the picture, plus the men wouldn’t have had their guns or horses with them, and on and on and on — like I said. Action movie stuff.) Meanwhile, the famous story about the cherry tree and Washington’s refusal to “ever tell a lie” is, of course, a lie. Some of the mythologizing about the man is based in fact, but not all of it — and that could lay the groundwork for a compelling script, perhaps even one that compares and contrasts the human Washington with the fantastical one.
In the right hands, this could be a great opportunity to unpack the mythologizing of one of our founding fathers. After all, Hamilton‘s proven that it’s possible to approach these stories from a new perspective (yes, we’ll take any possible excuse to bring up Hamilton). With the right writers and creative team, this could be pretty interesting.
Except, this is Zack Snyder, so … it’ll probably just be 300 with George Washington. Which … I would still probably watch, but I’d have to turn my brain off beforehand.
What do you all think about this concept? Who do you think would make for good action star casting as Washington?
(via io9, image via Wikipedia)
—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—
Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?
