300

In December, 2003, while watching Tom Cruise heroics in "The Last Samurai", we first came to know about the ancient battle of Thermopylae that Tom's character referred to and in which 300 Spartan soldiers fought off a much larger Persian force in an epic battle. After 3 years and 3 months, we were rightly amazed to find out that the story of that battle has now become the stuff of 2007's first certified blockbuster as the bloody action tale "300" debuted with ticket sales of $70 million over its opening weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. That's about $233,000 for every one of those legendary 300 Spartan soldiers.

"300," adapted from Frank Miller's graphic novel, stars Gerard Butler as Leonidas, king of the Greek city-state of Sparta, who leads his vastly outnumbered men against the Persian invaders. Facing insurmountable odds, their valor and sacrifice inspire all of Greece to unite against their Persian foe, leading to the origins of democracy.

Directed by Zack Snyder ("Dawn of the Dead"), "300" presents the actors against digitally created backgrounds to re-create the look of Miller's graphic novel, a technique similar to that used on the movie adaptation of Miller's "Sin City."

Heavy on violence, the movie had an R rating, normally a damper on a film's blockbuster potential. But "300" wound up with the third-best debut ever for an R-rated movie, behind "The Matrix Reloaded" at $91.8 million and "The Passion of the Christ" at $83.8 million.

Here is the official site: 300themovie.com .