FILM · 2006
300
109 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
88 Interesting Facts About 300
- #003
Leonidas had an older brother, Cleomenes, and an older half-brother, Dorieus. Because Leonidas was third in line to the throne, he was sent to the agoge, the traditional school and warrior training for Spartan youths. When Cleomenes took the throne, however, Dorieus left Greece in jealousy. Later, after the Persian attack at Marathon, Cleomenes, who was suspected of being insane, fled into exile, leaving Leonidas as heir. Leonidas was therefore one of the few Spartan kings to have gone through the harsh training of Spartan youths.
- #005
(At about 1 hour 35 minutes) Leonidas's last words to Ephialtes, "may you live forever," are an insult to the hunchback's desire to be a Spartan, whose greatest glory was to die on the battlefield. After the events at Thermopylae, the word "ephialtes" entered the Greek language, meaning "nightmare" or describing someone as the greatest traitor.
- #006
(At about 40 minutes) The quote "Then we will fight in the shade" comes from the Spartan warrior Dienekes, who was warned about the enemy's arrows. It also appears on the uniforms of modern Greek soldiers.
- #007
Gerard Butler trained in the gym for an average of 4 hours a day for more than 4 months to get into shape for the role of the king.
- #009
Warner Brothers hoped to earn 74 million dollars from Sin City (2005). They were somewhat surprised when it finished at just north of 200 million dollars in total.
- #010
(At about the 9th minute) In real life, Queen Gorgo did say the line "Because only Spartan women give birth to real men," but she did not say it to the Persian messenger. According to the Greek historian Plutarch, in Book III of the "Sayings of the Spartans" in Moralia, she said it to an Athenian woman who asked her: "Why can Spartan women speak amongst men?"
- #011
(At about the 45th minute) When the Persians demand that the Spartans surrender their weapons, the reply is: "Come and get them." According to Plutarch, Leonidas actually said this. It was also adopted as the motto of the Greek Army's 1st Corps. In October 1835, when Mexican soldiers were sent to take a cannon from the town of Gonzales, the first battle of the Texas revolution began with a similar act of defiance; the cannon was a weapon given to the settlers for protection against Comanche raids. The Mexican government was worried it could be used against them. The settlers flew a flag over the cannon bearing its image and the words "come and take it." The settlers won the battle.
- #012
Thirteen mechanical horses were built to be struck by spears and knocked over.
- #013
The key to Leonidas's strategy was that the coastal pass at Thermopylae narrowed at three points ("gates") to only about 100 meters between the cliffs and the Malian Gulf. Because of sediment, the gulf is now several kilometers from the cliffs, and the battlefield lies buried under about 20 meters of earth.
- #015
Warner Bros. initially pushed Zack Snyder to direct the film aiming for a PG-13 rating. Snyder refused, and the studio eventually agreed to make an R-rated film.
- #016
Director Zack Snyder's son plays the young Leonidas in the childhood combat training scene.
- #017
The fluid effect of the oracle dance scene was achieved by filming the actress underwater.
- #018
It was shot in chronological order.
- #019
As a child, Frank Miller watched Rudolph Maté's The 300 Spartans (1962), in which Richard Egan played King Leonidas, and was deeply affected by it. He explained that realizing the hero does not always win and that sometimes being a hero requires sacrificing oneself changed his perception of the concept of the 'hero'. He has been fascinated by Thermopylae ever since seeing the film.
- #021
The film never claims to be historically accurate; this is a subject discussed at length in the documentary The 300: Fact or Fiction? (2007) on the 2-Disc Special Edition DVD. The film is based primarily on Frank Miller's 1998 comic book miniseries "300". In the documentary, Miller openly admits he made many radical changes to history, while director Zack Snyder also admits he made further changes. Snyder states that he was interested in creating an exciting, visually striking action film that would appeal to a wider audience rather than a typical historical epic. In fact, he states that the film is a subjective account told by Dillios (David Wenham) to encourage his men, and that the narrative therefore cannot be trusted as historically accurate or entirely objective. Snyder acknowledges that Dillios is not a man who would let the truth get in the way of a good story, and that the depiction is specifically intended to be the Spartan perspective of the battle. Snyder specifically addresses the depiction of the Immortals. The Immortals were a real battalion, but they were not demons, just ordinary men. However, in Dillios's account, it is far more dramatic and heroic for the 300 to fight against an attack by 10,000 demons rather than 10,000 men. As both Miller and Snyder claim, the film is not a realistic work.
- #022
Some of the weapons used in the film are actually leftover weapons from earlier war epics such as Alexander (2004) and Troy (2004). They were 'recycled' to reduce costs.
- #023
It surpassed Constantine (2005) as the highest-grossing R-rated comic book film and held the record for nearly ten years until it was overtaken by Deadpool (2016).
- #024
Rodrigo Santoro's voice was digitally altered to be a full octave lower.
- #025
The film was shot in 60 days.
- #026
Contains a major spoiler — show
In a deleted scene, Ephialtes jumped from a rock to try to kill himself but failed, which led to his decision to betray the Spartans.
- #027
Contains a major spoiler — show
The character of Dilios (David Wenham) appears to be partly based on the real historical figure Aristodemus — according to the historian Herodotus, he was the only Spartan to survive the battle of Thermopylae and had been dismissed from the force by Leonidas because of an eye infection (not a wounded eye). However, rather than returning to lead any Spartan force, Aristodemus was regarded as a coward until his death, fighting partly blind a year later at the battle of Plataea (the battlefield where Dilios is seen delivering his rousing speech, which serves as the film's narration), where the Persian invasion was finally crushed.
- #028
Applying Andrew Tiernan's hunchback makeup took five hours each day.
- #029
Rodrigo Santoro modeled his performance on Yul Brynner in The King and I (1956).
- #030
Rodrigo Santoro wore 33 fake piercings as Xerxes.
- #031
Contains a major spoiler — show
(At about 1 hour 29 minutes) In real life, Leonidas's last words were not "Tonight we shall dine in hell" but "Tonight we shall dine with Hades". Hel is the Norse underworld, but its name became synonymous with the Christian Hell in later days.
- #033
Gerard Butler pulled an arm tendon during the making of the film and developed foot drop.
- #034
The historical Queen Gorgo was the daughter of Leonidas's older brother Cleomenes.
- #035
Footage from the film was shown at the Comic-Con convention in San Diego in July 2006. The audience was so impressed by the clip that they wanted to watch it three times.
- #038
Although Lena Headey's character is credited as Queen Gorgo (the real person's actual name), she is never once called by name in the film. She is named in 300: Rise of an Empire (2014) and in the subtitles of that film's DVD/Blu-Ray release.
- #040
At one point Zack Snyder told the writers to add more weirdness to the film.
- #041
(At about 1 hour 20 minutes) Lena Headey tested her slap on Zack Snyder to make sure it wasn't too hard.
- #042
A large, flattened U-shaped rock-like set was built for the film and was used in multiple places throughout the film, shot only from different angles.
- #043
(At about 10 minutes in) King Leonidas taunts the Athenians as "boy-lovers." In fact, because a Spartan man would live alongside other soldiers until about the age of 30, it was the Spartan army that was mistakenly thought to encourage homosexual relations among its soldiers. A similar line was used about the Spartans by an Athenian in 300: Rise of an Empire (2014).
- #045
Contains a major spoiler — show
King Leonidas's individual body count consists of 33 Persian soldiers, 1 Persian envoy and 1 wolf. This number does not include the Persians he defends in the battle scenes.
- #046
The film is set in 480 BC.
- #047
In an interview with IGN.com, director Zack Snyder says the fighting styles and formations (especially the Spartan phalanx) were deliberately altered, making them historically inaccurate so that "look cool" would work better for the film's purposes.
- #049
It recorded the 24th biggest box office opening in history at the time.
- #050
Leonidas fighting and killing a wolf as his passage rite is strangely fitting. Sparta's legendary lawgiver was named Lycurgus, meaning "the one who keeps the wolves away."
- #051
None of the actors are of Greek or Persian origin. Gerard Butler is Scottish and Irish, David Wenham is British-Australian, Lena Headey is English and partly Irish, Michael Fassbender is German and Irish, Patrick Sabongui is of Egyptian origin, and Rodrigo Santoro is Brazilian of Italian and Portuguese origin.
- #052
More than 600 costumes were made for the film.
- #053
No CGI was used to enhance the actors' physical appearances.
- #054
In real life, Leonidas was 60 years old when he died. Gerard Butler was 37 when he shot the film.
- #055
Shortly after the film's release, significant controversy arose over Tyler Bates's music. Bates's score was said to be largely borrowed from the music Elliot Goldenthal had prepared for Titus (1999); in particular, Bates's "Remember Us" is identical to Goldenthal's "Finale" in some sections, and "Returns a King" closely resembles "Victorius Titus". On August 3, 2007, however, an upcoming lawsuit was mentioned, and Warner Bros. Pictures acknowledged on the film's official website: "A portion of the music cues for 300 were taken, without our knowledge or participation, from music composed by Academy Award-winning composer Elliot Goldenthal for the film Titus. Warner Bros. Pictures has great respect for Elliot, our longtime collaborator, and is pleased to have amicably resolved the matter." As a result, the Blu-ray re-release, titled "300: The Ultimate Experience", carries the note "Derived in part from: Pre-Existing Compositions Not Written by Tyler Bates" alongside the composer credit.
- #056
(At about 1 hour 9 minutes) As the narrator describes the confusion among the Persians, with the troops behind wanting to advance and those in the front line wanting to retreat, he uses lines from Thomas Babington Macaulay's 19th-century poem "Horatius", about a small Roman force holding a narrow bridge against a far larger enemy. From the poem: "No one was there to lead such a terrible attack: but those behind cried 'Forward!' and those in front cried 'Back!'".
- #057
Military strategists have pointed out that the way to break the Spartan formation would have been to use artillery. If heavy projectiles such as stones had been rained down on the Spartans, the Persians could have destroyed them from a distance. But the catapult would not be invented for another 200 years.
- #059
(At about 10 minutes in) As Leonidas walks with the Persian messenger, there is a Persian cat on the roof to the right.
- #060
The rhinoceros came from a story one of the writers heard about an African buffalo attacking a hunter.
- #061
(At about 1 hour 15 minutes) The goat-headed bard was designed by Adam Forman, Zack Snyder's personal tattoo artist.
- #062
Zack Snyder pitched the film to Warner Bros. in the early 2000s, but they hesitated to produce it because they believed Troy would be the sword-and-sandal epic of the moment. When they decided to drop it in favor of I Am Legend, he pitched 300 to them again, and they agreed to produce and distribute it.
- #063
It was claimed that the six-packs on all the actors were digitally enhanced. This is not the case, since they all had to undergo extreme training. To show empathy for his actors, Zack Snyder underwent the same training. Impressive as it looked, it had its pitfalls. Gerard Butler developed an addiction to painkillers because of the damage he did to his body.
- #064
Shortly after the film's release, Iranian bloggers and journalists were outraged by it. Under headlines such as "Hollywood Declares War on Iranians", they criticized the film for its monstrous portrayal of the ancient Persians, the ancestors of modern Iranians. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's cultural adviser called it "American psychological warfare against Iran." So far, no mention has been made of the opening or closing scenes, which establish that the portrayal of the Persians is a consequence of the story being told from a Spartan point of view rather than an omniscient, contemporary one.
- #065
Most of the swords in this film were plastic.
- #066
The word "Sparta" and its derivatives (mostly the term "Spartans") are used a total of 72 times. That means the word Sparta is used at least 0.62 times per minute.
- #067
It was shot mostly using the super-imposition color key technique to help replicate the imagery of the original graphic novel.
- #068
The war cry was modeled on the U.S. Marines' "Ooh Rah!"
- #069
Contains a major spoiler — show
At the climax, where Leonidas draws Xerxes' blood and the remaining 300 Spartans are killed by Persian forces with arrows, the Captain (Vincent Regan) makes a last stand and manages to take down several Persians before being crushed by a spear. He appears to stop, but only to catch his breath, and then kills three more Persians; the last one he reaches by pulling the spear further into himself to get close to the soldier who mortally wounded him, impaling him with it. This is an exact copy of the thrilling fight scene between King Arthur and the enemy leader in John Boorman's Excalibur, one of director Zack Snyder's favorite films. Snyder also uses a similar scene in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, where Superman is crushed by Doomsday but climbs up Doomsday's spike to get close enough to kill the monster and save the world.
- #070
More than 60 people worked on the film's costumes.
- #072
Lena Headey's first day of shooting was the scene in which she delivers her speech in the Senate.
- #073
The effects in the final sequence were achieved by having three different cameras film the same fight.
- #074
The song heard in various trailers is "Just Like You Imagined," from Nine Inch Nails' 1999 double album "The Fragile" (Halo 14, Left CD, Track 7).
- #075
Ten visual effects vendors contributed to the film, which spanned three continents.
- #076
It was Michael Fassbender's first film.
- #077
Executives at Warner Bros. were surprised to learn that director Zack Snyder wanted to shoot the entire film in a single take with sound. In the final film, only one frame was not recorded on set.
- #078
James Cameron is a big fan of the film.
- #079
In the third battle with the Immortals, three Spartans are shown being killed, which accounts for 297 of the 300 Spartans.
- #080
Astinos takes his name from Zack Snyder's Aston Martin car.
- #082
(At about 1 hour 40 minutes) The intro of "Message for the Queen," which plays near the end of the film, comes from an old Macedonian folk song, "Zajdi, zajdi jasno sonce" ("Set, set, bright sun").
- #084
The location of the "Hot Gates" is about 200 kilometers from the city of Lamia, north of Greece's capital, Athens.
- #085
The sword each Spartan uses is a kopis. They were made of iron rather than steel, since steel metallurgy had not yet been discovered in that region at the time and steel was not as large as the film's props. Herodotus records that the Greeks fought with their spears until they broke, then with their swords until they broke, and then with their hands and teeth until all were killed.
- #086
Leonidas' necklace has a wolf's tooth. At the beginning of the film, he encountered a wolf as part of his training.
- #087
It surpassed The Mask (1994) as the highest-grossing film adapted from a Dark Horse comic book.
- #088
Vincent Regan (the Captain) appeared in both Troy (2004) and Clash of the Titans (2010), both of which are set in Ancient Greece.
- #089
British-Iranian martial arts actor Darren Shahlavi plays a small role as one of the Persians.
- #090
Zack Snyder wanted a building to be destroyed, but to save money he replaced the building with pottery.
- #092
In the Book of Esther in the Bible, Esther is married to the Persian king Ahasuerus, who is most likely King Xerxes.
- #093
The film drew complaints from the Iranian government, which objected to how it was portrayed, particularly its depiction of Xerxes as effeminate.
- #094
"300" is partly based on "The Histories," written by Herodotus around 425 BC.
- #096
Zack Snyder was developing a sequel titled "Blood and Ashes" covering the military campaigns and alleged homoerotic relationship of Alexander the Great and his second-in-command, General Hephaestion, but it never came together. The rights to the script eventually returned to Snyder, and he incorporated some elements of it into Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023).
- #097
After the film's box-office success, Warner Bros. offered Zack Snyder a production deal and bought him a $350,000 Aston Martin Vanquish. Snyder said, "They don't really do that in Hollywood anymore."
- #098
Stephen McHattie had played Hollis Mason in Watchmen (2009), also directed by Zack Snyder.
- #099
It grossed $71 million domestically in its opening weekend, the third-biggest opening for an R-rated film after The Matrix Reloaded (2003) ($92 million) and The Passion of the Christ (2004) ($84 million).
- #100
During the night battle between the 300 Spartans and the Immortals, Leonidas uses his spear almost like a whip against several Immortals, while the sound effects resemble a tiger's snarl and roar.
- #101
During a secret meeting between Theron and Queen Gorgo, Theron threatens that King Leonidas will be thrown in "jail" upon his return. The term prison emerged in France around 1200 or 1300.
- #103
Alexandra Beaton's debut.
- #104
Kelly Craig's debut.
- #105
In 300, Xerxes is depicted as a giant bodybuilder referred to as a God-King or simply a God, whose appearance resembles the New Gods of mainstream DC Comics created by Jack Kirby. Zack Snyder would later direct the first DC Extended Universe films, Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Justice League (2017), which drew heavily on Kirby's work on the New Gods of the worlds New Genesis and Apokolips, ruled by Highfather and Darkseid respectively.
- #107
When Leonidas fights the Uber-Immortal in the night battle, the Spartan king is repeatedly stripped of his weapons by the monster man until he is on his back using only his hands. As the Uber-Immortal tries to stab him, Leonidas crosses his arms to block or deflect the blows. This is an exact copy of DC Comics' Wonder Woman's pose of crossing her arms over her chest, both as a defensive maneuver and as an energy attack. Of course, Zack Snyder would later direct Gal Gadot as Diana of Themyscira in the Man of Steel sequels for Warner Bros. and DC Comics.
- #108
Zack Snyder's son, Eli Snyder, played Leonidas as a child.
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