After 300 made its costs back in the first five minutes of release, it was really only a matter of time before yet another classic Frank Miller graphic novel was greenlit for the cinema treatment. So the only surprise in today's news that Miller's manga-style epic Ronin is headed to the screen is that it didn't come a month ago.
Not to be confused with the ridiculously testosterone-y John Frankenheimer French-set thriller of 1998, this story concerns a reincarnated samurai and ancient demon who battle for supremacy in the streets of a near-future New York. There's a lot more bumph about biocircuitry and artificial intelligence and telekinesis and a dude with no arms or legs, but it basically comes down to good vs evil and a quest for a magical sword that can determine the fight.
The prospect of this version has been floating around for a while, but Warner Brothers have now bought the rights to the story, with Sylvain White, of Stomp The Yard, set to direct. The plan is to film the story in the same style as 300, against green and blue screen, with a budget of about £65 million, making it a big step up for White, who graduated from music videos to Stomp the Yard, which had a budget of £14 million. Let's just hope he doesn't take all the money to Vegas and blow it on the slot machines.
So is this all a good idea? Well, it's a very different beast to 300, with a much more twisty-turny story, and it remains to be seen if the CG environments will work in a more reality-based setting, but there's no reason why it shouldn't work. Although we'd be lying if we said we wouldn't have preferred to see the proposed Darren Aronofsky version, which was at one point set up at New Line in the late '90s. Still, good luck to White, and let's cross fingers.