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Wide ScreenRecycled sequels: ’300: Rise of an Empire’ recycles footage (and actors!) from the first movie
Despite being killed during the bloody finale of “300,” King Leonidas (the fearsome Spartan ruler in Zack Snyder’s 2007 film) was originally meant to have a big part in the upcoming “300: Rise of an Empire.” However, when "300" star Gerard Butler turned down an offer to reprise the role, the producers of the sword and sandals sequel had a dilemma on their hands: Do they recast Leonidas or try to find another solution?
They opted for the latter.
Whether he chose to be in the film or not, Gerard Butler appears in the “300: Rise of an Empire” by way of re-used footage from the first movie. The events of “300” and “Rise of an Empire” overlap, with parts of the sequel taking place before, during, and after the original film. Though they may not have been able to get Butler back, this convenient arrangement allows “Rise” to ride the proverbial coattails of the hugely popular “300,” despite being a sequel that not a whole lot of people were really asking for.
The producers likely feared that they would be hard-pressed to sell to audiences on the sequel without at least one “THIS IS SPARTA!” from the late King Leonidas. What’s a little technicality like death to prevent ol' Leo from having another go at the invading Persian army?
This isn’t the first time a sequel has re-used footage from an earlier movie to get around the issue of recasting. “Back to the Future II” (1989) pulled the same trick with actor Crispin Glover, who played Marty McFly's dad George. For reasons that still remain unclear (though we suspect it might have something to do with the infamous David Letterman incident in 1987), Glover was not asked to reprise the role of Marty's dad in the sequel.
However, George McFly did appear in "Back to the Future II." Conveniently, the central plot device of the franchise allowed the producers to recycle footage from the original “Back to the Future.” Glover sued producer Steven Spielberg over the issue and won, and as a result there are now clauses in the Screen Actors Guild collective bargaining agreement the prevent filmmakers from doing this. That SAG rule means that Butler probably signed off on the "300: Rise of an Empire" appearance somewhere along the line.
The “300” sequel and “Back to the Future Part II” certainly aren’t the only Hollywood movies that have recycled footage from other films, it’s just that most other movies are a little more subtle about it. Though subtlety may not be a word moviegoers usually associate with explosion impresario Michael Bay, the filmmaker has artfully reused footage on multiple occasions. A shot of an aircraft carrier that originally showed up in Bay’s 2001 World War II action movie “Pearl Harbour” also showed up again in 2007’s “Transformers” with some computer generated enhancements to make it look more modern.
Similarly, a scene featuring an exploding car from the director’s 2005 flop “The Island” cropped up again in 2011’s “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”:
More obvious was the resurrection of actor Marlon Brando for a brief cameo as Jor-El in Bryan Singer's 2006 pseudo-sequel "Superman Returns."
Why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on another shot when you can just re-purpose an old one?
