Blood is the lifeblood. (Photo: WB)

[by Scott Thill]

"Frank Miller's story," explains director Zack Snyder, whose adaptation of the Sin City and Batman comics auteur's own version of the infamous Spartan battle of Thermopylae otherwise known as 300 goes widescreen on March 9, "is that it dawned on him right near the end that he couldn't figure out how the good guys were going to get out of it. And he said it changed for him what heroes meant, and it's in every one of his books ever since. If you're looking for that single moment that shaped an artist who's commented on our culture in what I think are pretty important ways, that's the moment."

Snyder is having his own moment of epiphany as well, on track as he is to adapt not just the legendary Frank Miller but the equally legendary Alan Moore, whose epochal graphic novel Watchmen -- a comic that Terry Gilliam once infamously called unfilmable -- is up next for the Pasadena-based director. Talk about your Sisyphean tasks.

"After I make Watchmen ," the ebullient Snyder laughs, "I'm not going to want to do another graphic novel film for a long time."

For now, Snyder needs to prove that he belongs to the tiny coterie of directors, starting and almost ending with Sin City 's Robert Rodriguez, who have successfully adapted astoundingly popular graphic novels for the screen. In fact, it could be argued that 300 is his own Spartan rite of passage. Considering that it is a stunning piece of poetic CGI violence that has the visceral feel of a comic come to life, he's off to a good start.

Especially since acting and directing's physical realm is only part of 300 's gory cinematic mixture; computers do just as much heavy lifting. And they went to town, turning green-screen melees in Montreal into immortal Greek battles straight from the pages of history -- give or take a few historical details. As Stanford classics heavyweight Victor Davis Hansen writes in 300 's companion making-of book, "If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should carefully read the ancient accounts and blame Herodotus."

Those who will most likely be receiving praise once 300 spears a public hungry for heroes, blockbusters and successful graphic novel adaptations are Snyder and his crew, led by VFX supervisor Chris Watts and VFX art director Grant Freckleton, whose digital wizardry built everything from the historical setting to the slo-mo blood spray.

Snyder hopes it is enough wizardry to give him the momentum he needs to tackle Watchmen next. No small matter considering its idiosyncratic author wants nothing to do with any film adaptation of his work, especially the one that helped change comics forever. But with the success of Sin City and perhaps 300 , the times, as Dylan sings in the pages of Watchmen itself, might be a-changing for bad comic book films. So here's the rest of my Wired transcript with Zack from early 2007, and here's to Frank Miller on film. The more, the better.

Morphizm: So 300 and then Watchmen . Talk about making an entrance.
Zack Snyder: Yeah, good times. Good times

Morphizm: Frank's work seems to have a very cinematic imagination behind it.
ZS : I think that Frank has gotten a pretty good shake from Hollywood in recent years, and I also think that helps his attitude towards it, makes him more pro than con. And I don't even think it's Hollywood necessarily, I think it's just the filmmakers that have chosen to adapt his work. I credit Robert really, because I think that if Robert had not made Sin City in the manner he did that Frank would have the attitude and experience he has towards comics in film.

Morphizm: Watchmen has so many panels, whereas 300 doesn't.
ZS : But the process of making 300 was the same. This is our making-of book.

Morphizm: The cover is directly transliterated. I saw another scene of Xerxes' army taken directly from the graphic novel.
ZS : That's the image. The way the book is set up is so that you have my drawings, and then you have the frame of the film that it corresponds with.

Morphizm: Has this process begun for Watchmen yet?
ZS : Not yet, but that's the next step. But look at this: The frame comparison is pretty crazy.

Morphizm: That one, featuring Xerxes ships getting smashed at sea, looks like it was inspired by Japanese woodcuts.
ZS : It was. That's where all of Frank's influences come from. Well, not all of them, but a lot of them.

Morphizm: He has so much physical chiarascuro going on.
ZS : Exactly. And it's not representational!

Morphizm: I was going to say earlier that you're not just remaking a novel, you're remaking a film, 300 Spartans .
ZS : True. I've got to say that I've seen the movie, and I think that Frank references the film more than I do. For example, the Persian emissary at the end is right out of the movie. That outfit? Right out of the movie.

Morphizm: What about Xerxes?
ZS : Xerxes I took from Frank's novel. There he is, Rodrigo, in his crazy costume. I took that shot directly from the book. The scale is ridiculous. Even the shots of Rodrigo are scaled for him to appear giant in the film.

Morphizm: These cats are in better shape than the actors of 300 Spartans .
ZS : Oh, for sure. They are in freakin' crazy good shape. And they trained very hard; they really cared about their roles.

Morphizm: Same goes with Gerry?
ZS : Yeah, he was incredible. He did whatever needed to be done to make the film great.

Morphizm: So there is a ton of CGI in this movie.
ZS : Yeah, but it's funny because the whole idea of a CGI film with CGI backgrounds doesn't really do 300 justice. It's a much more tableaux-oriented film than your run-of-the-mill CGI background film. I love reading people on the internet complain that 300 looks like another CGI-background film. I'm like, another? Where is this big category of CGI-background films? We didn't even know how we were fucking going to do this one!

Morphizm: Well, what's the realistic alternative? Building it out of scratch in the middle of Tunisia like Lucas did, or Greece for that matter? In this film, and especially with Frank's other work, it's done in a way that looks like the comic came to life.
ZS : It's done to get closer to the book. If you were out in the desert, it's Troy, and you're back in that world. It doesn't relate to the book at all; it is its own thing. It's a sword-and-sails movie, and if that's what you want to do, if you want to go up to Vasquez rocks and film a bunch of guys wearing leather skirts, that's cool. But it's not this. This is a different experience.

[Next Page: "I think the last thing Hollywood would want to do is make a film that pointed out global conflict. You know how they are. I mean, I love that the perception is that Hollywood would want to make a propaganda film, but it's impossible. Even if I wanted to make a propaganda film, that would be impossible..."]

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