It’s 300 week here at Stately Beat Manor!

As we close in on the premiere, more evidence that star Butler has learned well to praise comics:

“After I sat down and read ‘300,’ I just thought, ‘What have I been missing?’ This world of comic books is insane. His comic books, his graphic novels are just wicked,” Butler enthused. “I didn’t realize that you could get quite so dark and masculine and formidable just through drawings and dialogue on a page.”

We KNOW what you have been missing, DDGB, we KNOW.

Meanwhile, its interesting to read some of the marketing metrics on this movie, which at this point seems insanely overhyped, but…well you never know.

“When we ask, ‘What are the most highly anticipated movies of the year?’ 300 and Spider-Man 3 are the ones mentioned the most,” says Alex Billington, co-founder of fan site FirstShowing.net, who witnessed the Comic-Con reaction firsthand. “What 300 has achieved now, no one else has come close to achieving. This is setting the new standard for comic-book movies.”

Warners is really expecting this to be a huge hit, but that is reportedly backed up by very favorable testing. We keep reading tidbits like the following; considering the extreme violence and manliness of the film, it has had a surprisingly favorable reaction from the ladies:

As for anyone who thinks 300 is guys-only fare, consider those half-naked Spartans. At test screenings, the film tested 100% positive for women of all ages.

Says Snyder: “The studio was like, ‘What the hell? We don’t even get this at our romantic comedies.’ “