Actors like Gerard Butler and Michael Fassbender won't be back playing Spartan warriors in the upcoming Noam Murro-directed 300 sequel Rise of an Empire, but it does have more than a few actor connections back to the original. The Persian God King Xerxes, once again played by Rodrigo Santoro, will be back as the central antagonist, as will Lena Headey's Queen Gorgo, the Spartan wife of King Leonidas. Both are expected to play important roles in the plot of the film, and enforcing that point is that the latter of the two characters is front and center on this new poster for the movie, found by Coming Soon.
The new movie is based on a script by Zack Snyder and Kurt Johnstad and tells the story of a battle fought parallel to the events at Thermopylae, as portrayed in the first film. The plot follows Greek General Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton) as he faces down the Persian army at sea. On the other side of the split narrative, we discover the origins of the Persian leader Xerxes and are introduced to Artemisia (Eva Green), the commander of the Persian navy who has vengeance in her heart aimed directly at the Greeks. You can watch the fictional take on history come to life in the recently released trailer below:
Since appearing in the first 300 movie Heady has not strayed from genre work, both on the big and small screens. While she is likely best known to audiences these days thanks to her role as the evil Cersei Lannister on HBO's Game of Thrones, she also starred as Sarah Connor in the Terminator television series and had roles in movies like Dredd, The Purge and The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones. She has definitely found a niche in the world of sci-fi and fantasy.
It's rare for character posters to be released alone, so stay tuned the rest of the week to see more from the film. Who will we see? You can probably bet on seeing Stapleton, Santoro and Green, but who else?
300: Rise of an Empire also stars Jack O'Connell, David Wenham, Callan Mulvey, Hans Matheson and Andrew Tiernan. Warner Bros. will have it in theaters on March 7th.
