New 300: Rise Of An Empire Character Poster Has Sullivan Stapleton Seizing Glory

300 Rise of An Empire Stapleton

We still have a few more months to go before the release of 300: Rise of An Empire, but Legendary wants to make sure that you’re good and ready for it when it lands. Via the studio’s Twitter feed a brand new character poster for the movie has been released, this one highlight a Greek hero played by an up-and-coming star.

The actor you see in the poster above is Sullivan Stapleton, who, much like Gerard Butler before he did the first 300, is a talented performer who is just waiting for his breakout role. Hailing from Australia, he is probably best known on the big screen for his supporting role in 2010’s Animal Kingdom, but for the last few years he has also kept busy on the small screen starring in the Cinemax series Strikeback.

300: Rise of an Empire features Stapleton as the legendary Greek hero Themistocles. Fighting in a story parallel to the one in Thermopylae (which was portrayed in the first movie), the protagonist leads his army into a naval battle against the Persian forces that wish to see Greece destroyed. The Persian navy is led by Artemisia (Eva Green), a commander who has sworn vengeance on the Greeks, and the entire war is driven by the will of Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), the god-king. Noam Murro, who previously helmed the 2008 dramedy Smart People, is helming the project and using a script co-written by Zack Snyder and Kurt Johnstad based on a story idea by Frank Miller.

We’ve been seeing new character posters all week for the film going back to Monday when we got a brand new look at Lena Heady’s Queen Gorgo:

300: Rise of an Empire Heady

And then Legendary unleashed these designs highlighting Green’s Artemisia and Jack O’Connell’s Calisto:

300: Rise of an Empire Green

300: Rise of an Empire O’Connell

Who is willing to bet that tomorrow brings a character poster for Xerxes? Expect lots of gold and plenty of pierces with chains attached to them.

A poster can have a flashy image and a cool tagline, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good preview of what to expect from the film. Get a better look at the feature with this recently released trailer:

300: Rise of An Empire will be in theaters on March 7, 2014.

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.