Zack Snyder, director of the film adaptation of Frank Miller's 300 graphic novel, has completed nine weeks of filming and expects to have wrapped up principal photography on the movie before the end of January. The film, which stars Gerard Butler (Phantom of the Opera) as King Leonidas of Sparta, is being made with the same sort of 'green screen' technology employed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller on their extremely popular adaptation of Miller's Sin City graphic novels.
Although the 300 movie is still slated for 2006, no firm date for its release is available yet, but given the nearly half a million copies of Miller's Sin City graphic novels sold in the wake of the Sin City film, retailers should definitely keep abreast of the developments regarding 300.
In several interviews concerning the making of the 300 film, Zack Snyder has talked about his desire to recreate the visually rich tapestry Miller fashioned for his retelling of the legend of the 300 Spartans, who held off the Persian hordes at Thermopylae in 481-480 BC, and from the looks of the early stills that have been released from the film, it will hew closely to Miller's vision.
Warner Bros., the studio producing the film, has created a Website for the movie that includes several examples of the way in which the filmmakers have transformed Miller's graphic novel from page to screen, and although the horizontal aspect ratio of widescreen movies is often at odds with the shapes of the panels created for the 300 graphic novel (published by Dark Horse), there is little doubt of the attempt to come as close as possible to the look of Miller's work.