Facing armies that numbered over in the millions, the Spartans obviously knew they would ultimately lose, but they fought on, regardless. Apparently, one of the details that was changed from the novel is that in the draft of the script reviewed by IGN , Zeones was a helot , but in the book, he was not. It's quite possible this might all change again by the time the film actually starts production. Should Michael Mann make this his next project after Ali , it could start filming as early as 2002 for a release in late 2002 or sometime in 2003. Please note that all release dates are subject to change.
Concurrence is a funny thing.
Culturally, there are some instances where two or more things happen simultaneously that address the same topic, so that each audience feeds into each other. 1998 saw the publication of both a novel and a comic book series that told stories of the same Greek battle. This project is part of a larger trend of films that are set to return to both antiquity and tales of war, after many years when such stories were considered passe' and politically incorrect. Historical epics are expensive ventures, so Hollywood was slow to try them, but with Braveheart and Gladiator as recent examples of films that were both box office and critical successes, the way is paved for more and more, such as Alexander the Great , King Arthur , and others to follow. Even though they knew they were surely going to die, King Leonides and his Spartan knights held the pass of Thermopylae long enough for the Greek forces behind them to rally forth and unite for future battles.