New pictures and info from Neil Marshall's "Centurion" (2010)

I'm actually really excited about this project, because I love this time period...a time period which was in danger of dying off on the silver screen after "Alexander". Even after the success of "300", there were no signs that "sword and sandals" epics could make a comeback, unless they relied heavily on green screens. Maybe this and the more mythology-based "Clash of the Titans" (2010) can help bring this genre back to life...

Source: Empireonline.com

Is your Monday a bit grey or drizzly or lacking in heavily-armoured Romans laying the smackdown on ferocious Pict warriors? We have the answer - and it's a nice cup of tea. Or, failing that, these rather spiffy new images from Neil Marshall's brutal, balls-to-the-wall take on Roman Britain in Centurion.

The movie speculates on the fate of Rome's reputedly 'lost' Ninth Legion*, who in this take are north of Hadrian's Wall, engaged in a bloody battle and facing a bit of trouble getting out of hostile Pict country. Our hero is Fassbender's Quintus, seen in the second of these pictures with Liam Cunningham (who of course starred opposite him in the harrowing Hunger).

Said Marshall of his latest, "The Picts are like the Indians and our Romans are like the cavalry. So, a Scottish-Roman Western! Who'd have thought?!"

Said Fassbender, "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."

Centurion is out in March 2010, and you'll have to pick up the new Empire for more on it. And yes, after last week's Clash of the Titans pics and Twilight: New Moon posters, we are spoiling you with new pictures. Sorry if we've ruined you forever.

*While the story that they were lost was accepted for years, it's not believed that they, er, weren't, since they turned up a bit later in the eastern Europe. But we're still looking forward to this one and to the similarly themed but more child-friendly Eagle of the Ninth.

Helen O'Hara