When the 300 soldiers led by Leonidas died at the end of the epic movie 300, we had no choice but to think it was all over. Who would have known that another story would rise and come alive on March 7, 2014.  Directed by Noam Murro from a screenplay by Zack Snyder and Kurt Johnstad, this is how 300: Rise of an Empire came to be.

"When we made '300' a lot of the movie was created with a lot of economic restrictions and we had this idea of the style of movie we wanted to make", said Zack Snyder about the first film. "We thought it was a movie for a small audience that would be into [a] comic book movie. It was a genre that didn't exist and Frank [Miller] had done it in the comic book and to me when I saw the comic book I thought it was an amazing comic book. When we finished '300' they all died and that's it and you didn't think there could be another movie. When Frank came and said oh this other thing actually happened as the same three day that took place on '300' ... we said, 'what? That's cool.' It's fun for me to see these two movies now exist next to each other," Snyder added.

So why did Zack Snyder decide to step down a bit and pass the director's hat to Noam Murro? Well... the man became just a bit busy working on Man of Steel and all. "When Noam came to us to talk about the idea of making the movie ... we had the script and we knew that I was going to go do 'Man of Steel,'" said Snyder. "There was no way that I was going to be able to do anything, it was a big decision to say OK maybe we should get another director". Zack's wife, Debbie Snyder, also a movie producer, had worked with Noam on a TV commercial "back in the day." After Murro blew them away with a "cool presentation" of his idea for this new film, they felt "he had the vocabulary to make something cool."

300: Rise of an Empire brings back the rage of human turned god Xerxes played by Rodrigo Santoro. This new film returns with the graphics that changed the basis of movie making in 2007, with most of the story-taking place on the sea. Rise of an Empire will remind fans of the courage and force of Sparta as they take revenge against the Persian Empire once again. The female force in this movie takes "girl power" into another dimension, reminding us that Sparta respects and honors their women with good reason. 

300: Rise of an Empire hits theaters on Friday March 7.