Kevin Dillon is the 301st Spartan

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on October 5, 2007

Well a movie can only make so much dough before someone realizes that copying it is a good idea. Or if that’s too obvious, make it a parody! Variety is reporting that Kevin Dillon (Entourage) is going to play the lead in National Lampoon’s 301: The Legend of Awesomest Maximus Wallace Leonidas. So what does this title tell us? It’s a National Lampoon. They’re making fun of, err, parodying, 300. And Gladiator. And Braveheart.

Dillon will play a less-than-kingly Spartan who somehow manages, through we can only assume a comedy of errors, manages to become the Awesomest Spartan ever. Jason Burinescu wrote and will produce this, his first outing.

What more can one say? I like Kevin Dillon and I hope this does well for him. But I’d put the chances of that about equal to the 300 beating the Persian army at the battle of Thermopylae, and we all know how that turned out. Jason Burinescu makes his producing/writing debut with the 301 and a director is to be named shortly.

I don’t think anyone out there dislikes Kevin Dillon and I personally want to see him advance his career - generally speaking, not since the earlier Vacation films, has National Lampoon’s been a way to stardom. However, we Rejects wish him luck and hope he dines in nice restaurants, rather than hell. Or at the very least, we’re thinking Arby’s.

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