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It looked like a monsoon outside in Los Angeles on the Boulevard of Stars as I walked in to do interviews for 300: Rise of An Empire as part of our exclusive countdown of the final 300 hours until the film’s release.

Zack Snyder and his wife Deborah were sipping tea and water in their hotel room and still in a good mood, despite Zack hanging up on another reporter who had just finished a phoner with the duo prior to talking to me.

The hang up was an accident, leading Zack to give the reporter some extra minutes, which meant I needed to wait a tad bit longer. No problem, it was raining cats and dogs in Hollywood; I wasn’t going outside to play in that. Prior to getting my interview, I was told not to ask any questions about Superman vs. Batman, and only to ask questions about 300: Rise of An Empire.

Again, no problem. I didn’t have any Superman questions per se; unless you count Kanye West as the Man of Steel. I wanted to know what Zack thought of Kanye West messing up the 300 reference in his song “Black Skinhead.”

In the song, Yeezus raps, I keep it “300 like the Romans…” A good plug for the movie, right? The only problem is that 300 is about a war between the Spartans and the Persians and Sparta is in Greece.

So I asked Zack and Debra what they thought about ‘Ye’s flub. Zack thinks Yeezy should have used Google.

“I would say, Kanye, it’s just a little bit a research. (laughs). Weirdly in a way, it didn’t even bother me. I just feel like, it is what it is. It kinda sounds better than Spartans. The word Romans is easier to say.”

Luckily for Kanye, he has another chance to get his facts right, because 300: Rise Of An Empire hits theaters Friday and it’s full of awesome special effects, amazing fight scenes and is all over just as good as the first one.

Zack had to step away from directing this movie because of his duties with Man Of Steel. But his wife Deborah reveals getting the first one made was especially difficult.

“No one wanted to make the movie. For a while, we went around and they didn’t understand it. It was at the same time when they were making Troy and Alexander. Troy had Brad Pitt; we had no one at the time. They’re like, ‘Who do you have? You have this weird test. Is it an animated movie about a graphic novel?’ And even when we made it, we didn’t have that much money. We thought that we were making a boutique movie that a small group of people would like. When it opened, the opening weekend, we didn’t even know what that meant!”

Zack continued,”$75 million, I was like, ‘Is that good?’ (laughs) We just didn’t know. I guess I knew because Tom Cruise called me on Sunday morning to say, ‘Hey, congratulations on the box office.’ I was like, ‘Who is this?’ He goes, ‘Tom Cruise.’ I’m like, ‘What the heck! That’s awesome.'”

So now with a bunch of hit movies under his belt and another great film ready to come out, what does Zack think of people questioning his judgment? As you know, fans of Superman and Batman were quite upset when Ben Affleck was cast in the upcoming Superman vs. Batman. But Zack doesn’t seem to care what the haters have to say:

“I think we’ve gotten to the point now that making a movie is hard. If you second-guess yourself, you’re not really making it. Anyone can turn their computer on and say, ‘Oh the internet wants us to cast that guy, let’s do that.’ Anyone can do that, but I think that for us, we really are like, ‘What’s right for the movie, what’s right for the way we wanna make it?’ And [what’s right for] the script, because we’re the only ones who’ve read the script, we know what’s gonna happen. So we’re like, ‘This is the right guy, this is the right approach.’”

Deborah co-signs the decision, saying:

“Also you can’t be afraid of taking risks. I think the first 300, maybe the studio thought it was a risk, and they took it. Sometimes it doesn’t always hit, that’s the thing, that’s why it’s a risk. I think creativity comes out of that. I hope people will continue to be exploring so that we don’t get the same things over and over again, because that’s just boring.”

There’s just a few more hours left until 300: Rise Of An Empire hits theaters on Friday, March 7th. Find out more about the film here.

PHOTO CREDIT: Warner Bros, Getty

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