The Eagle is a 2011 epic historical drama film set in Roman Britain directed by Kevin Macdonald, and starring Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell and Donald Sutherland. Adapted by Jeremy Brock from Rosemary Sutcliff's historical adventure novel The Eagle of the Ninth (1954), the film tells the story of a young Roman officer searching to recover the lost Roman eagle standard of his father's legion in the northern part of Great Britain. The story is based on the Ninth Spanish Legion's supposed disappearance in Britain.
The film was an Anglo-American co-production. It was released in the U.S. and Canada on 11 February 2011, and in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 25 March 2011.
The Eagle is effectively a sequel to the film Centurion, written and directed by Neil Marshall, because Channing Tatum's character in The Eagle is Marcus Flavius Aquila, the son of Titus Flavius Virilus who led the Ninth Legion that was lost in the far north of Britannia, and who was therefore the same person as Dominic West's character Titus Flavius Virilus in Centurion: it continues the story of the disappearance of the Ninth Legion fighting the Picts in what is now northern Scotland, north of Hadrian's wall by following the leader's son's search to solve the mystery of what happened to his father, and the Legion, and the golden eagle standard that they carried everywhere with them, and to restore his family's honour.
