Broken Frontier

Warner Bros. 300, directed by Zack Snyder and based on the Dark Horse graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, performed extremely well during its opening weekend, both domestically and overseas.

The movie grossed over $70 million since debuting on March 9, already generating a profit since it cost about $60 million to produce. As such, 300 now goes into the history books as having the third-largest opening weekend ever for an R-rated movie, trailing only Matrix Reloaded and Passion of the Christ.

While Hollywood has had an on-again, off-again relationship with historical epics (2000’s Gladiator railed in over $460 million worldwide, but following genre movies like Troy, Alexander and Kingdom of Heaven all dramatically underperformed), 300 was positioned as a film for moviegoers of any kind. Comic book fans that dug the graphic novel were no-brainers to go see the adaptation, but Warner Bros. went all-out to wet the appetite of men (who’d drool over the blood and sword-fighting) and women (who’d fall for the strong relationship between Queen Gorgo and King Leonidas) who weren’t regular comic readers.

Internationally, 300 generated $6.2 million from only 337 screenings and ate up over 50% of the market share among top five movies in Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Greece.

Since it draws heavily upon the country’s ancient culture, it’s not a coincidence that 300 performed well in the land of Zeus, where it set another record by grossing $2.9 million off 112 screenings, blasting away last year’s mark set by Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest.

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