If you’re already heading out to your local IMAX theater to drop an unreasonable quantity of cash on tickets for the new RoboCop remake, then we have good news for you. You’re going to get a bonus look at 300: Rise of an Empire for your money, too. Will it be worth it? Definitely maybe.
Robocop is a mere two days away, hitting theaters of both the IMAX and non-IMAX variety this Wednesday, February 12th. 300: Rise of an Empire is a little further out, set to debut on March 7th. It makes sense though that Warner Bros. would want to capitalize on the buzz surrounding RoboCop by letting audiences know that they can expect to see a whole lot of half-naked Spartans “seizing their glory” in the near future.
It’s also a good bet that there is some overlap between potential audiences for the two action-heavy films as they have something in common, at least in a very tangential way, and that is Frank Miller. He wrote the original 300 graphic novel and has at least partially written Xerxes, the sequel upon which 300: Rise of an Empire is based. What many people don’t know, however, is that Miller also wrote the scripts for RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, which many RoboCop fans have probably tried to forget actually exist. Similarly, many RoboCop fans might try to forget that the new remake exists too, even if it looks like it’s going to be a whole lot better than those less-than-stellar sequels.
To sum up their respective plots: RoboCop is not, strictly speaking, about a robot cop. He’s more of a cyborg, really. 300: Rise of an Empire is about Sparta’s attempts to thwart the militaristic advances of Persia. It’s not really about 300 Spartans anymore, though, and both empires are arguably at the height of their power, so there’s little to no rising involved (come at me, historians). So really, we’ve got two movies with titles that are misleading at best. But hey, they will at the very least look pretty awesome blown up on an IMAX screen. That’s why you’re paying the big bucks for the experience, right?