The night before they won the Rose Bowl, Michigan State’s football squad, the Spartans, got a sneak preview of “300: Rise of an Empire” — the sequel to the 2007 smash “300” in which Gerard Butler showed his unfeasibly cut abs and yelled, “Spartans! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty . . . For tonight, we dine in hell!”
Hollywood studio Warner Bros. showed the team and their coach Mark Dantonio the 3-D film at the Regal LA Live theater, and we hear its producer and screenwriter Zack Snyder even stopped by to surprise the players by introducing the film. (He’s currently directing “Batman vs. Superman” with Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill.)
The new “300” installment includes battles at sea between an underdog fleet of Greek ships and a powerful Persian armada.
The next day, Michigan State defeated Stanford for its first Rose Bowl win in 26 years. No word on whether they borrowed any of the film’s dialog for motivation in the locker room.