UPDATE – SEP. 13, 2012: Box Office Mojo has also backed up speculation that the 300 prequel will now be called “300: Rise of An Empire”. Several hours after this story was originally published, Box Office Mojo posted the movie title change to its website from “Untitled ‘300’ Sequel” to “300: Rise of An Empire”.
ORIGINAL STORY – SEP. 12, 2012 @ 4:21 AM EST: Is the upcoming prequel to 300 called ‘300: Battle of Artemisia’ getting a new title?
There appears to be a possibility that the film may be renamed.
Sparking speculation are some interesting domain registrations made this week by the brand protection company MarkMonitor, the same firm responsible for registering the Battle of Artemisa names back in January of this year.
The list of new domains registered privately by MarkMonitor on September 10, 2012, include 300-riseofanempire.com (Whois), 300riseofanempire.com (Whois), 300theriseofanempire.com (Whois) and RiseofanEmpire.com (Whois).
Each name was registered anonymously using MarkMonitor’s Whois privacy service DNStination, but you can bet the company behind the names is Warner Bros. Warner Bros.’ very own warnerbros.com (Whois) is managed through MarkMonitor.
If the film is retitled, it wouldn’t be the first time.
In June 2011, Deadline reported that the 300 prequel, first known as “Xerxes”, would be retitled to 300: Battle of Artemisia.
One thing is for sure, “Rise of An Empire” is much easier to spell than “Battle of Artemisia”, but if the name is changing, that’s probably not the only driver.
Recent 300 buzz focused on news that Gerard Butler would not be appearing in the Warner Bros. film. Butler told an MTV reporter, “They’re filming [the ‘300’ sequel] right now. I wish them the best, but it didn’t [work out]. It wasn’t really my thing.”
At the time of this story, none of the new domains resolve to a web page. A quick check of other top level domains, shows that MarkMonitor only pursued the .coms, leaving other domains available.
The 300 prequel, whatever it is called, is scheduled to be in theaters on August 2, 2013.
TALKING ABOUT THIS STORY: Moviehole
