Darkness pressed against the window of his room at the Beverly Hills Hilton, but inside, the lights were glaringly bright. Rex sat hunched over his laptop, the film he’d just seen still turning over in his mind.
As one of the country's top ten professional film critics, he could no longer simply sling insults and mock a film he disliked, as he might have in his earlier days.
He mulled it over for more than half an hour before finally opening his blog and beginning to type.
"From a technical standpoint, 300 utilizes the industry's most advanced blue and green screen and CGI technologies, yet it is a relatively simple multi-layered composition. Its level of complexity is hardly comparable to King Kong. The frequent shifting between fast and slow-motion is a technique best left to music video directors who readily indulge in such superficial gimmicks."
"Five years into his career, Matthew Horner is still content to rely show off his physique, and his acting skills are frankly appalling. His entire repertoire consists of playing 'tough guys'!"
"Furthermore, the film shows a blatant disregard for history, grossly exaggerating the Spartans' role in the Battle of Thermopylae."
"The truth is that history is never rely a story; history is a reality that once pulsed with life. We make and watch epic films not to gaze upon events frozen in ti, but because the people of the past were moved by excitent, sorrow, grief, and joy, just as we are—because we share a blood kinship with them."
"On the matter of history, 300 has plumted into an abyss..."
A director obsessed with flaunting his technique and a leading man obsessed with flaunting his physique—neither inspired any warmth in Rex.
After uploading his concise review, he assigned the film a two-star rating at the top of his blog.
Rex hoped the two-star rating would be enough to sink the film at the box office. Beyond his dislike for the movie, there was the simple fact that he couldn't stand Matthew Horner as a person.
He could only hope that 300 would be a massive box office bomb—one that would ruin Horner, send his stock plumting, and make him vanish from Hollywood for good.
Ding! A text alert chid on his phone, and Rex quickly checked it. A ssage at this hour could only be from his contact at the cinema, an informant who reliably sent him the early box office numbers for every major new release.
Unlike most self-proclaid professional critics, Rex understood the importance of the market. Hollywood survived and thrived on comrcial success, and in the end, so did its critics.
That's why he knew one thing for certain: for a star like Matthew Horner, who was purely focused on comrcial projects, bad reviews ant little. The only thing that could truly derail his career was a box office failure.
Rex opened the ssage. His eyes fell on a single figure: $13.5 million. In an instant, all his hopes evaporated.
With 300 pulling in $13.5 million from its early screenings alone, what hope was there?
Glancing at the scathing review now live on his blog, Rex could only let out a frustrated sigh. He knew enough about the market to understand that with early numbers like these, the film's opening weekend was guaranteed to be massive.
The more he dwelled on it, the more irritated he beca, certain that the rest of his night was ruined.
****
As dawn broke over Los Angeles, the workday was just beginning in New York. A man nad rchant entered a building near Tis Square, heading to a dressing room to change into his costu. Ard with a spear and shield, he joined several dozen of his companions and followed their bearded leader out onto the square.
The group's arrival imdiately caused a stir. Tourists, passersby, and the journalists perpetually stationed in the square all turned to stare, their curiosity piqued. Even the NYPD officers patrolling the area gave them a wary look.
rchant worried the police might run them off. After 9/11, the city had beco far stricter in countless ways. But the officers rely watched, making no move to intervene.
He took their inaction as confirmation that the event organizers had already cleared all the necessary permits.
His worries assuaged, rchant squared his shoulders and flexed, the red cape doing little to hide his physique. Alongside his companions, he struck poses for the curious onlookers, proudly displaying his well-developed muscles.
Today, they were Spartans!
It was an easy, well-paying gig: dress up like a Spartan from the 300 trailer and make appearances in high-traffic areas like Tis Square and Central Park.
The squad of Spartan warriors made several laps around Tis Square, gathering a large crowd of curious people in their wake. So rushed up for photos, others asked for details about the promotion, and a few even wanted to touch their muscles.
Before long, rchant and the other Spartans marched toward the AMC movie theater on the corner of the square. A massive poster for 300 hung above the entrance.
The spectacle successfully drew a considerable number of people toward the theater.
After a brief respite, he and the other Spartan warriors were on the move again.
rchant noticed journalists filming them and gave a wave to the cara, thinking it would be pretty cool to end up on television or in the papers.
anwhile, in Boston, the streets were also filling with red-caped, muscular Spartans, who happened to cross paths with several reporters.
These Spartan warriors were appearing in major cities all across the country, their tall, athletic builds making them impossible to ignore.
Over in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, Nibora himself led a group out from his gym, his own build strikingly similar to Matthew's.
He had requested a complete Leonidas costu from the production team and even had a makeup artist apply a fake beard, explaining that he wanted to fully embody the character.
The dark golden helt he wore was so convincing that when he strode into a Santa Monica shopping center, many people mistook him for Matthew himself.
Within ten minutes, Nibora was sward by a sea of people, surrounded by hundreds of fans clamoring for photos and autographs.
"What's Matthew doing here?"
A young reporter with a TMZ press pass hanging from his neck turned to his slightly older colleague. "Our editor told us to co here for photos of Matthew, right?"
The older reporter replied, "That's not Matthew. He's just a look-alike wearing the sa costu as Leonidas from the film."
The younger reporter adjusted his cara angle to fra all the Spartan warriors in the shot. "How do you know?" he asked.
"Because our editor told
so."
The senior reporter clicked the shutter, snapping a few more photos. "Hurry up," he reminded his partner. "We need to get back by noon. These are going up this afternoon."
"Whose brilliant idea was this, anyway?" the younger reporter muttered. "Sending a bunch of muscular guys to run around a public place."
The two reporters shadowed the group of Spartans all morning. By the ti they finally packed up around noon, at least a dozen other journalists had co and gone, taking their turn to cover the stunt.
By afternoon, photos and videos of the "Spartan Invasion" were flooding the internet, especially on the handful of social networking sites that were just beginning to erge. The campaign quickly beca a trending topic.
The 300 Spartans effortlessly and overwhelmingly dominated the front pages of major entertainnt news outlets and websites.
Likewise, in the comnt sections of news sites and forums across the web, talk about 300 was all-encompassing.
As with most of Matthew's starring vehicles, 300—a purely visual, male-driven, comrcial action film—was not well-received by critics.
Roger Ebert dismissed it in his column with a single, lazy sentence: "A complete piece of crap with a mountain of muscle!"
David Denby, the film critic for The New Yorker, was equally unimpressed, citing its "empty thes, shallow tone, questionable politics, gratuitously bloody scenes, and a mostly non-existent plot."
However, the critical reception wasn't universally negative; many found that the film had its rits.
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Tis, however, offered a glowing review: "300 is a must-see for anyone craving a truly epic film. The majestic scenes, visual effects, and cinematography are electrifying. Matthew Horner's performance is powerful, especially as he leads the charge against the overwhelming Persian army, and his fight scenes are a master class in action choreography."
Of course, such divided critical opinions were hardly unusual.
One day after its release, 300 had accumulated 56 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Unsurprisingly, its Tomatoter score was rotten: a re 55% fresh, with an average critic rating of 5.2 out of 10.
But none of that could dampen the spirits of David Ellison, who burst into the Horner estate early Saturday morning, absolutely ecstatic.
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