The film industry’s fondness for superhero movies is well known, but the fad of adapting graphic novels is relatively recent. When discussing comic-book adaptations, it’s important to note the difference between stand-alone titles such as these and more popular series such as Batman and Superman. Currently in preproduction is another Moore work, the 1986 Watchmen, perhaps the most legendary graphic novel of all time, to be directed by 300’s Snyder. Similar numbers were posted soon after by another long-awaited graphic-novel adaptation, James McTeigue’s version of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta. 300, of course, was not the first major adaptation of one of Miller’s works Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City made more than one hundred and fifty million dollars internationally in 2005. (Miller’s book, while a cult item among comic aficionados, was never much of a crossover success, but even for best sellers, the number of viewers for a hit adaptation is far greater than the number of readers.) And yet within weeks of the film’s release, Hollywood studios green-lit other graphic-novel adaptations, eager to replicate its success. Neither the seventy-million dollars that Zack Snyder’s adaptation of 300 made on its opening weekend nor the more than two hundred million dollars it has grossed in the United States alone as of this writing can be attributed primarily to the readers of Frank Miller’s original graphic novel.

300 miller comic