Nadat Zack Snyders verfilming van Frank Millers 300 een enorm succes bleek te zijn, ging Miller meteen aan de slag met de opvolger Xerxes. Deze graphic novel wordt een prequel op 300 en zal hoogstwaarschijnlijk ook een verfilming krijgen. Hieronder zie je het eerste artwork van Xerxes.

Miller vertelt aan Los Angeles Times dat het verhaal van Xerxes veel groter, uitgebreider en complexer is dan dat van 300:

“The story will be the same heft as ‘300′ but it cover a much, much greater span of time — it’s 10 years, not three days,” Miller told the . “This is a more complex story. The story is so much larger. The Spartans in ‘300′ were being enclosed by the page as the world got smaller. This story has truly vast subjects. The Athenian naval fleet, for instance, is a massive artistic undertaking and it dwarfed by the Persian fleet, which is also shown in this story. The story has elements of espionage, too, and it’s a sweeping tale with gods and warriors.” … “The new tale climaxes with a massive naval confrontation that is so dense that it is fought like a land war and it ends on the same day as the events of 300.”

Vervolgens gaat hij dieper in op het verhaal en de personages:

“The time frame begins 10 years before ‘300′ and the story starts with the Battle of Marathon” … “The lead character is Themistocles, who became warlord of Greece and built their navy. The story is very different than ‘300′ in that it involves Xerxes search for godhood. The existence of gods are presupposed in this story and the idea is that he well on his way to godhood by the end of the story. With Themistocles I have a character who is almost the dead opposite of Leonidas in that Themistocles was a lying, conniving, brilliant, heroic figure. He was nicknamed ‘The Subtle Serpent’ and he always manages to do the exact right things that will result in him benefiting greatly.”

Er zullen in Xerxes ook nog twee andere personages uit 300 zitten, waaronder Ephialtes, de Spartaanse verrader, en Leonidas (in 300 gespeeld door Gerard Butler). Dark Horse Comics brengt Xerxes vanaf 2011 uit als een zesdelige comicreeks.

Snyder zei tegen de Times dat hij interesse heeft om ook deze graphic novel in een film om te toveren, zolang het boek maar geweldig en aangrijpend is. Hij kan niet wachten om Millers Xerxes open te slaan:

There was a big discussion about what we would do for the sequel to ‘300′ and I said, “I didn’t tell Frank what to write the first time, and I’m not telling him what to write this time,” he told us when asked who came up with the idea for Xerxes. “I’ll take it and I’ll adapt it and make it into a movie and I’ll write a screenplay, but I want him to do whatever he thinks. I’m not going to say I’m 100%, like that’s it, but on the other hand, I’m pretty confident it’s going to be awesome. That would be the next thing and then I’m working on a sci-fi thing that Kurt and I are writing together, an original thing.

Overigens heeft Warner Bros onlangs 10 minuten van 300 omgezet in 3D bij wijze van test. Het zou dus goed kunnen dat de film uit 2006 vlak voor de release van Xerxes opnieuw wordt uitgebracht, maar dan in 3D.