You can say many things about Zack Snyder, and many film critics have over the last couple of decades, but there's no doubt that some of his most popular films have proven to be really influential. 300 probably stands alone as the pinnacle of this, with its slow-mo fight scenes changing what people expect from swords-and-sandals movies.
I can't prove, by any stretch, that Amazon is looking to harness some of that nostalgia with its newest epic series, House of David, but I think there are more than enough parallels to merit the comparison. The show just got its first trailer, and will arrive on Prime Video on 27 February, at the end of this month.
The show will tread familiar ground in retelling the famous biblical of story of David versus Goliath – a tale of one man toppling a fearsome giant, armed with nothing but a sling. From the trailer, it looks like it'll properly lean into the "giant" bit, too, with Goliath looking roughly twice as tall as the men in the army that surrounds him.
The show will take things slowly, though, to tell the story of David's childhood and young adulthood as the context for how he found himself at the centre of such an unlikely battle. Bible adaptations, it's fair to say, do sometimes get painted into the corner as potential propaganda for the religion, so it'll be interesting to see what sort of tone House of David takes.
Once you watch that trailer, I'm hoping that the comparison to 300 will make more sense. You have a few instances of impactful slow-mo in fight scenes, but also a lot of dramatic lighting and night-time scenes that, while not as stylised as Snyder's work, look to me like they took inspiration from it. Given that 300 also features some giant fighters, there's even more grist to my mill.
Whether you think that's spurious or not, you have a few weeks to wait before you can check out House of David for yourself. The show promises to add another feather to Amazon's bow as it seeks to maintain its position as the best streaming service on the market by our reckoning.
