When Zack Snyder's 300 came out in 2007 it was a certifiable box office hit. Pulling in $70 million on its opening weekend, the film went on to make $450 million at the global box office, an impressive feat for an R-rated film. The movie still stands as the highest grossing movie of Snyder's career, but there's a very good chance that will start to change this weekend, as Man of Steel hits in theaters. Now a good time to sell any film with Snyder's name on it, so even though the new sequel 300: Rise of an Empire isn't out until March of next year, we have the first trailer online today.
Just as it was promised yesterday when the new poster for the movie arrived, the premiere preview for the new 300 film has debuted over at the title's official Facebook page. Because it's a green band trailer (despite not having a green band) you don't really get a full sense of what is sure to be a blood-and-guts filled story, but the message is pretty clear: lots and lots of people are going to be killed in brutal, epic combat. The filmmaking style and the use of green screen backgrounds is consistent with the way the last movie was made, but this one definitely differentiates itself by having so much action on the water.
Directed by Noam Murro, 300: Rise of an Empire once again delves into the world of fictionalized ancient history to portray the Battle of Artemisium, a naval battle that occurred between Greek and Persian forces at the same time as the Spartan's Battle of Thermopylae. Greek general Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) is the central character of the tale, working to unite the people of Greece in the battle against the living god Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and Artemesia (Eva Green), the commander of the Persian navy with a serious grudge against the Greeks. Look for the movie in theaters on March 7, 2014.
