Frank Miller

As one of the greatest innovators in the comic book field, particularly for his revisionist take on popular characters, hard-boiled writer and artist Frank Miller was destined to make his presence known in Hollywood. After earning acclaim and a large fan base with his revival of Daredevil for Marvel Comics and his own original samurai-themed work Ronin (1983), Miller was propelled to comic book superstardom thanks to his groundbreaking, post-modern take on the Cape Crusader, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986). Soon after, Hollywood beckoned, which led to writing the scripts for "RoboCop 2" (1990) and "RoboCop 3" (1993). But his experience with being rewritten without consideration left Miller a bit jaded about the Hollywood process. He did, however, have comic books to fall back on, and created what became his most personal and subsequently successful series, Sin City (1992). Full of gorgeous black-and-white drawings with only tinges of color - representing the bleak noir world he presented - the comic became Miller's most crowning achievement. Wary of Hollywood encroachment, he eventually consented to an adaptation after filmmaker Robert Rodriguez's insistent lobbying efforts, which resulted in the popular commercial success of "Sin City" (2005). Miller found himself at the top of the comic book adaptation heap with "300" (2007), a huge box office hit. Miller went solo as a director for the first time with an adaptation of "The Spirit" (2008), but his talents were always best served when sitting at a desk putting ink to paper.