Warner Bros. has released the first trailer for 300:  Rise of an Empire, the sequel to 300.  Beginning with narration by Lena Headey (Game of Thrones), who plays Queen Gorgo in both movies, the trailer gives a good feel for the main characters, the naval and land battles, and the art direction that’s such a big part of this franchise.  It also displays more prominent roles for women (including Eva Green, who plays Artemisia), a valuable change from the first film.

The first poster came out in April (see "First Poster for '300' Sequel"). 

And where’s the Frank Miller graphic novel on which the film is ostensibly based?  Since a preview in Dark Horse Presents #1 back in 2011 (see "First Look at Miller's 'Xerxes'"), things have been pretty quiet.  Dark Horse CEO Mike Richardson told ICv2 in a February 2011 interview that Miller was working on the third of "roughly six issues" (see "Mike Richardson: The ICv2 Interview Part 2"), and that they were "coming close to the date when we can announce when that will be released."

Dark Horse knows well that the time to rack up sales on the graphic novel is in the months before the film is released; it sold huge quantities of Miller’s Sin City and 300 graphic novels using that strategy the last time around.  It’s our guess that if the book was done, we’d know about it; so here’s hoping that the book is completed as soon as possible to give the maximum window for sales before release of the film on March 7, 2014 (see "Geek Movie Date Shuffle").