New York Comic Con brought with it a first look at a trailer for Hercules: The Legend Begins, an origin story for the Greek demigod that stars Twilight‘s Kellan Lutz in the lead role, and while it featured a few cool-looking action shots a lot of Screen Rant readers were underwhelmed by by what they saw. Luckily there is a second Hercules movie on the way, featuring a loinclothed Dwayne”The Rock” Johnson as an older (and significantly larger) version of the hero who takes up arms against a brutal warlord in order to help the King of Thrace and his daughter.
Based on Steve Moore and Admira Wijaya’s graphic novel “Hercules: The Thracian Wars” and directed by Brett Ratner, the production on Johnson’s film has been well-documented by Johnson himself, who has been sharing set photos and stills from the movie with his 5.7 million followers on Twitter. We recently rounded up some of the best images he’s shared so far, but the truth is that you can never quite have enough pictures of Dwayne Johnson wearing a lion’s head for a helmet.
Hercules: The Thracian Wars just wrapped production and to celebrate the hard work of the cast and crew, Johnson shared a brooding, sepia-toned image of himself wearing the aforementioned lion hat and holding the reins of a chariot that also bears a lion head detail on the front. As you can see from the photo, Hercules’ lion head is actually still attached to the rest of the lion’s skin, which he wears as a cape – animal lovers, avert your gaze.
![Dwayne Johnson Prepares for Battle in ‘Hercules’ Images as Production Wraps](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Dwayne-Johnson-rides-a-chariot-in-Hercules.jpg)
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![Dwayne Johnson commands troops in 'Hercules'](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Dwayne-Johnson-commands-troops-in-Hercules-280x170.jpg)
![Dwayne Johnson on the set of 'Hercules'](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Dwayne-Johnson-on-the-set-of-Hercules-280x170.jpg)
One thing that really stands out about the latter two images is how few men Hercules has under his command, though whether they represent the King of Thrace’s entire fighting force or whether they’re just a small contingent isn’t clear. Hercules is tasked with training the soldiers in order to make them better fighters, but if they are incredibly outnumbered like the Spartans in 300, it could make for some pretty epic battle scenes.
Based on the glimpses of green screen seen in both the above photos and previous ones, it looks like the locations for Hercules: The Thracian Wars were created through a mixture of practical sets that will be fleshed out with CGI. The sets themselves look pretty authentic, but let’s hope that the effects are up to scratch as well since unconvincing CGI backgrounds were one of the most noticeable flaws in the trailer for Hercules: The Legend Begins.
Does Dwayne Johnson have what it takes to become the definitive Hercules, or should we put him in the ring with Kevin Sorbo to be sure?
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Hercules: The Thracian Wars is slated to open in U.S. theaters on July 25th, 2014.