300

Zack Snyder adapted the 1998 Dark Horse comic by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, and Warner Bros. released 300 on March 9, 2007. The story is a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae: Gerard Butler's King Leonidas leads 300 Spartans against the invading Persian king Xerxes. Snyder shot his actors against chroma-key screens and built the world in post-production — a "digital backlot" approach designed to replicate the comic panel for panel. The finished film carried more than 1,500 visual-effects shots, heavy speed-ramped slow motion, and a bronze-and-crimson palette that mimicked Miller's artwork.

The budget was $65 million. It opened to $70.9 million, breaking Ice Age: The Meltdown's record for the biggest March — and spring — opening weekend at the time (the March record stood until Alice in Wonderland in 2010), and went on to gross $468.9 million worldwide. The true legacy was cultural: Leonidas kicking the Persian herald into the pit — "This is Sparta!" — became one of the late 2000s' defining internet memes, with "Tonight we dine in hell!" and a thousand ab jokes close behind. The movie was absurdly quotable, visually unmistakable, and primed for remix. A sequel, 300: Rise of an Empire, followed in March 2014.