300 prequel?

The last time we talked about 300, we were still unsure as to the status of the sequel… or prequel… or… well, that was the thing; we really didn’t know what was going.

But last Friday, the “Hero Complex” blog over at the LA Times ran an entry about Greek mythology and its place in Hollywood (worth a read if you’re interested) where they got Frank Miller himself to give a little more solid info. Here’s the relevant quote:

The Zack Snyder film, the highest-grossing March release ever, was based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel about King Leonidas and his doomed army of Spartans; Miller is preparing a follow-up now titled “Xerxes,” which begins about 10 years before the events of “300,” and Snyder has expressed interest in it as a film property as well. “It’s the battle of Marathon through my lens,” Miller said Wednesday. “I’ve finished the plot and I’m getting started on the artwork.”

The Battle of Marathon, in a nutshell, sees the first major failure by the Persians to invade Greece and the subsequent rise of Xerxes who then led the second invasion. The Battle of Thermopylae, seen in 300 in all its Frank Millerness, was part of that second invasion. (Read more HERE.)

So does this mean Xerxes will still be a villain, albeit a somehow humanized villain that we see rise to power? How would Miller humanize Xerxes, a guy who in 300 we see as seductively evil and godlike? Maybe he’ll show how a man can become that way. Maybe he won’t do any of that at all and just make everybody hateful and misogynistic. I don’t know. Really, we know less now than before.