It probably does not come as a surprise to anyone that 300: Rise Of An Empire has taken the top spot at the box office in its opening weekend. It destroyed all of its competition, earning roughly $45 million domestically.

The film is the sequel to the hit 2007 hit film 300, which quickly became a fan favorite. The rallying cry from 300 even inspired the Spartans of Michigan State, who started using it as a chant during games in order to get everyone pumped up.

While the first film followed King Leonidas of Sparta, the sequel centers around Greek general Themistokles, who leads the charge against invading Persian forces led by mortal-turned-god Xerxes and Artemisia, vengeful commander of the Persian navy.

The cast of 300: Rise Of An Empire includes Lena Headey and Rodrigo Santoro from the first film, and brings in Sullivan Stapleton and Eva Green as Themistokles, and Artemisa, respectively.

The epic war adventure was shown in 3-D this time around, and also had showings in IMAX, which helped its earnings at the box office. The 342 IMAX screens brought in $6.8 million (or 15 percent) of the film’s weekend earnings, while 3-D showings accounted for 63 percent of the grosses.

if you're going to see 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE make sure to see it in IMAX 3D. It's worth it. The 3D is really good.

— Steven Weintraub (@colliderfrosty) March 7, 2014

300: Rise Of An Empire gives audiences the story of the Persian invasion of ancient Greece, and comes from a different perspective than the first film. The sequel ties in nicely with the original 300, and the events of the recent film were taking place around the same time, making it almost a mix of a prequel and sequel, which has not been done much before.

The original 300 film was groundbreaking in its visuals, and despite some lackluster reviews for the new film, audiences continued to flock to the theaters. The film had a big opening weekend, but still did not come close to 300‘s opening weekend of $70 million in March of 2007.

One thing that may have helped to turn some people away was the fact that Zack Snyder was no longer directing the film, since he did such a great job with the first one, and Noam Murro took over instead. However, Snyder did still write and produce the film.

While 300: Rise Of An Empire easily claimed the top spot at the box office, the new animated film from DreamWorks, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, took the second spot with an estimated $32.5 million. Third and fourth place went to Liam Neeson’s Non-Stop thriller, and The Lego Movie, which had been the previous reigning champions.

Image via Youtube