300, a history

"The violence doesn't bother anybody because it's done in a way that's not offensive," said Dan Fellman, Warner Bros. head of distribution. "People love the movie, they love the originality. The best thing you can have for a film is great word of mouth. When the public is selling the movie for you, that's when you have a real success."

The ancient battle of Thermopylae was 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.

The number of movie-goers for the Warner Bros. epic "300" outnumbered crowds for the rest of the top-10 movies combined. If the estimate holds when final numbers are released Monday, "300" would break the record for best March debut ever, topping the $68 million haul for "Ice Age: The Meltdown" last year.

"300" played in 3,103 theaters, about 850 fewer than the "Ice Age" sequel, making its box-office performance even more notable. It averaged $22,567 a theater, a whopping number for a wide release.

The total for "300" includes $3.4 million from 62 IMAX theaters, a record opening weekend for the large-screen format.

"300" bumped off the previous weekend's No. 1 movie, Disney's "Wild Hogs," which slipped to second place but held up well with $28 million, raising its total to $77.4 million.

"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.

"It's a new-fashioned version of an epic movie. Great, old-fashioned storytelling with all the brilliant use of the technology available to us now," "300" producer Mark Canton said Sunday.

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.