This. Is. Film News!
The prequel to Frank Miller’s Spartan (in that it contains Spartans, not that there’s not a lot in it) graphic novel 300 has thrown up two potential new directors (a rumour that Guy Ritchie would be involved seems to have vanished). 300 director Zack Snyder is also far too busy messing up the new Superman movie Man Of Steel to tinker with bearded oily men although he’s still on board as a producer and he wrote the screenplay.
The two directors named by Deadline to helm the project now renamed from Xerxes to 300: Battle For Artemesia are Noam Murro and Jaume Collet-Serra (yeah, we don’t know either).
Ok, so they’re not complete unknowns but neither are household names. Murro has only directed one feature so far – 2008’s Smart People but he has worked in FX-Heavy advertising, most notably for the hit game Halo. It wouldn’t be the first time a director’s successfully made the jump from commericials to features and 300 was always more about style than substance so he might turn out to be a good pick.
Collett-Serra might be a more familiar name as he directed this year’s “Not A Poor Man’s Taken At All We Promise” revenge-em-up Unknown starring Liam Neeson (the man with the world’s weirdest accent) and is also working on Red Circle and Harker.
This time the story will tell how Xerxes became the God-King he was from the first film after the death of Darius, his father, at the Battle Of Marathon in 490BC. Darius had told his son that the Greeks could only be defeated by a god, so Xerxes naturally tried to attain godhood for revenge.
Artemisia is a genus of plants that the wormwood belongs to (mentioned in the Book Of Revelation) but Artemesium was a famous naval battle which took place in the aftermath of the Battle Of Marathon, so that’s probably more relevent. Going with that, it looks like the Spartans will be taking to the seas in the prequel. Expect a raft of parodies to plague Youtube shortly afterwards.
