300 + Gladiator + Sam Raimi = Spartacus: Blood and Sand

Posted by Kevin Kelly (kevinkelly@filmschoolrejects.com) on July 31, 2009

SpartaMain1

Holy crap. If you haven’t seen the blood-tastic trailer for the upcoming Starz original series Spartacus: Blood and Sand, you need to do so. In fact, you can do it right after the break. It’s over the top and filled with sweaty men cutting chunks of flesh out of each other with all sorts of weapons. There’s blood, tons of nudity of both the female and male variety, (Lucy Lawless may even get fully naked, according to her), and lots of testosterone flying around. If you loved 300 and/or Gladiator, this is right up your alley. In fact, it’s so far up your alley that you might be sitting a bit uncomfortably right now.

The series is produced by Sam Raimi, he told us yesterday that he’ll have to vacate that seat for his directing duties on Spider-man 4. But his longtime producing partner Rob Tapert will be handling the reins, which is a bit of a return to the days of Hercules and Xena. If you listen to the Army of Darkness DVD commentary, you’ll hear Sam Raimi sort of half-heartedly apologize for the scene where two topless women are dragged offscreen by two skeleton warriors, and he blames it all on Tapert. Does that mean we can thank him for all of the gratuitous nudity in Spartacus? We hope so. Although it was a bit disturbing to learn that some of the men on set were not “very well endowed,” so they created a fake penis prosthesis for those scenes, and they appropriately called it “the Kirk Douglas.”

Check out the trailer for the series below. Spartacus: Blood and Sand will begin airing on Starz in 2010.

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Angela

Will watch for the lawlessness.

Aleric

Very impressive. This reminds me of 300 as well as the Rome the HBO series. I am tempted to get Starz now.

The_Kid

Just saw this trailer on Starz, visually it looks amazing. I'm gonna have to check this out.

ladyofthelake

I saw a comercial on Starz of course. Went to their site, saw the trailer and got excited. Saw the trailer again here. I'm a costume/period drama whore so I'm all for this. This can either be real good, or really really bad. Lucy Lawless looks good, John Hannah. It's all a rip off of the great way to short Rome. I mean each network is scrambling for there own version. HBO had Rome, Showtime has The Tudors. Still gonna watch, just hope all the best parts aren't in the trailer. It looks really fake in some parts, but who knows, the finish product could look amazing.

Oh, I'm all for fake penis. LOL. That sentence totaly came out wrong, ha. Seriously if woman can be all fake with huge plastic boobs that look like they hurt, then the men can be to. Sooner or later the men had to realize that they would be critized about the size of their junk. Knowing this, I'm gonna laugh my ass off, I can't help it. But seriously, the women watching this show need somehting to look at.

Kangaroo Be Stoned

Lucy Lawless better have nude scenes. She's sexy as hell.

Matt

Iv been waiting to see a nude Lucy Lawless since season 1 of Xena. The fighting looks cheesy as hell but if theres blood + boobs Ill watch it.

facebook-748958064

"I'm Spatacus!"

BoyScout

The show is, in fact, quite good. From the atypical flashback sequence that opens the series to, yes, the lust and culture portrayed, the series does well to distance itself from 300 by being a story that seems to have a long road ahead of it.

I found the main role of Spartacus and his wife to be a charming duo and a love lightly touched upon but sincerely felt. Moreover, the sets and the "green screen" technique really transports you across this ancient civilization.

Perhaps the blood is used a little too liberally in the cuts, fades, and transitions. And too, the dream sequences seem never too far away; an all too easy mechanism for showing sex, desires, or rolling heads.

All in all, watch this show! It is as entertaining and well put together as anything I have seen as of recent. I anticipate that Starz said, "If AMC can do it [with Breaking Bad and/or Mad Men] why can't we have our own original series?" Well Starz, you can - you have.

p.s. In the second episode (and within the first 10 minutes) Lucy Lawless does go topless - it is quite a stirring scene.

WT

Just watched the first episode and it was pretty good but what is the obsession with computer generated blood? It looks completely fake and cartoonish, I've seen more realistic blood on Family Guy. I think it is distracting during the battle scenes. I heard they are spending like $2 million per episode and they couldn't afford to get some realistic looking blood? Might as well just skip having blood at all.

justanotherfangirl

I watched it thinking "They're trying to cash in on a fanbase, but I'm not sure which it is." They are really going to have to bring more to the table than blood and boobies to keep people watching.

300 + Gladiator + Sam Raimi = Spartacus: Blood and Sand

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