Everyone’s seen 300 except me…still. I drove down to last night’s all-media IMAX screening at The Bridge to try and amend that distinction, but Warner Bros. publicity staffers arranged to pack both screenings (the 6:30 and the 9 pm) with fan boys in order to…I don’t know, convince journalists what a huge hit this film already is? No need to convince me — I’ve seen the tracking and realize that Zac Snyder‘s heavily CG’ed battle-of-Thermopylae movie is looking at a likely $40 million gross this weekend.

They call ’em fan boys, fan boys, fan boys! And they ain’t lonesome, and they ain’t blue. But I could never be a fan boy as long as I have a darlin’ like you — Tuesday, 3.6.07, 8:55 pm

I arrived at 7:35 and asked if I could just slip in and see the remainder of the 6:30 show. Sorry, I was told — every last seat is taken. (There would have been empty ones if a larger portion of the seats had been set aside for media people alone.) So I wandered around, ate a taco, and decided to watch Zodiac again to pass the time. At 8:55 I said goodbye to Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards and went back down to the lobby. A huge line of fan boys were waiting to get it, and a publicist told me they were “waiting to hear if there are any seats left.”

That was it — adios, muchachos. Warner Bros. was obviously somewhat interes- ted in guys like me seeing this homoerotic, washboard-stomach fantasy, but at the same time they weren’t 100% committed to the idea. I sure wasn’t going to wait in a fanboy line to get in to see it (I don’t “do” lines at all), so that was that.

I will pay to see 300 (Warner Bros., 3.9) at an IMAX theatre next week when I get back from London, and if there’s any way I can honestly and conscientiously trash it at that point, I will…not that anyone will care by that point….not that any critic’s feelings will matter one iota. Everyone I’ve spoken to (Jett included) wants to see 300. It looks very cool.