Director Neil Marshall's (Doomsday) latest film, Centurion, originally titled Ninth Legion, wrapped principal photography back in March, yet very little information about the film has been released. Centurion will be featured in the latest issue of Empire, so we will finally be able to get a peek at what Marshall calls his "Scottish-Roman Western."
Based on the exploits of the legendary Roman Ninth Legion that disappeared after embarking on a quest to wipe out the Picts in Second-Century Britain, Centurions stars Dominic West as General Virilus, commander of the 9th Legion; Michael Fassbender as Quintus Dias, a Centurion stranded behind enemy lines; and Olga Kuryleno as Etain, a ferocious Pict warrior. Fassbender told Empire to expect some blood.
There's certainly a lot of head-chopping. I guess you can always make modern-day parallels, to the occupation of Iraq. But it's the idea of someone who believes in an ethos, becomes disillusioned and comes to his own sort of beliefs. So there are parallels, and it's interesting when you take it out of our timeframe and stick it back 2,000 years.