'Sin City' Not A Hollywood Film

(CBS)  The film "Sin City" opened at No. 1 in the box office and has grossed more than $50 million in less than two weeks.

It's directed by Robert Rodriguez, and stars Bruce Willis, who has received critical acclaim for his role as the downtrodden police detective John Hartigan.

When you see how the movie was made, you'll be even more amazed at the job Willis does. As reports, "Sin City" is a new kind of film, different from any that's been made before.

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Writer Frank Miller created "Sin City" in a graphic novel series more than a decade ago. Using stark black-and-white images, and only the occasional splash of color, Miller wove a unique world of evil and corruption, where even the heroes are not free of sin.

Are these heroes different from Superman, Batman or Spider-Man? "Well, it's different that 'Sin City' is part of a newer breed of comic books that's come along,that's not tied down by the old rules," says Miller.

"His comics always stood out for me, from other comics in a comic store," says Rodriguez, who wrote his own comic strip as a teenager, and was a fan of "Sin City" from the moment he read it.

"[It was] very dark, just black and white. Hard men, beautiful women, vintage cars. I've been collecting them for about 12 years. It was much bolder than anything we were doing in cinema. I thought, 'I want to see this on a movie screen.'"

The film version of "Sin City" is true to its graphic novel origin: seedy, dark and violent. It's a world of criminals, prostitutes and corruption, alongside the most unlikely of heroes. Police Det. John Hartigan, played by Willis, willingly goes to jail for a crime he didn't commit to save a young girl's life.

Rodriguez approached Miller a little more than a year ago, looking to make his books into a film. "I told him it would be a shame to take this and squeeze this into a movie," says Rodriguez. "We should take cinema and all the tricks of cinema to turn movies into your book. And make a living graphic novel."

But Miller says he had heard this many times before: "I was not an easy catch."

"He sounded so weary when I called him," says Rodriguez. "The, you know, ah, but we're gonna have to write a script. Then we're gonna send that to the studio. And then they're gonna say it's too violent or it's too … I said, 'Frank, there ain't no script. We're gonna shoot right out of the book.'"

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