It’s surprising how often two groups get a similar idea at the same time, and as a result rival film productions go into development. While often this results in one or both projects getting abandoned, in the case of films about the legendary ‘lost’ Roman Ninth Legion, we’ve ended up with two movies, Neill Marshall’s recent Centurion and Kevin MacDonald’s upcoming The Eagle (formerly known as Eagle Of The Ninth). They are slightly different though, as while Marshall’s film followed the legion itself as it went beyond the edge of the known world (i.e. into Scotland) and got decimated, The Eagle picks up the story 20 years on, with Channing Tatum as the young centurion son of the leader of Ninth, who travels to Roman Britain to try and discover what really happened to his father and to restore his reputation. He goes beyond Hadrian’s Wall with only a slave (Jamie Bell) for company, to confront the fierce tribes that live there and retrieve the lost legion’s golden emblem, the Eagle. Interestingly while stories of the Ninth Legion disappearing under unknown circumstances have been around for centuries, modern historians think they were never lost at all, but it certainly seems good fodder for the movie. Click below to watch the first trailer for The Eagle, which arrives in cinemas early next year.