Summary SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT The classic action movie 300 transformed Gerard Butler's Hollywood career and just may be the peak of his extensive filmography. 300 was released in the United States on March 9, 2007, and became the tenth highest-grossing movie of that year, earning $456 million worldwide against a production budget of $60 million.
Before the release of 300, Butler was considered to be a versatile actor with a wide range and a leading man in dramas, romances, and action movies. Once 300 skyrocketed Butler to international acclaim, he would inevitably be linked to the action genre for the rest of his career. Butler's fame led him to star in a slate of romantic comedies as well, such as P.S. I Love You with Hilary Swank, The Ugly Truth with Katherine Heigl, and The Bounty Hunter with Jennifer Aniston.
Butler then starred in the underrated 2011 war thriller Coriolanus alongside Ralph Fiennes and went on to star in several action movies throughout the 2010s, such as Machine Gun Preacher , Olympus Has Fallen , Gods of Egypt , London Has Fallen , Geostorm , Den of Thieves , Hunter Killer , and Angel Has Fallen . While virtually none of these films seemed to win over critics, several of them turned out to be box office successes and are among the highest-grossing movies of his career.
On top of all that, Butler will reprise his role in a Greenland sequel called Greenland: Migration, adding yet again another action movie to his expanding filmography. Even though Butler is doubling down on some of his more recent successful action franchises, his legendary performance as King Leonidas in 300 will be difficult for him to beat throughout the rest of his career.
It might be for the best that Butler became more of a versatile leading man within the action genre rather than trying to recapture the iconic passion and intensity of 300 in his future projects. Butler also didn't completely abandon appearing in rom-coms after 2010's The Bounty Hunter, starring in Playing for Keeps alongside Jessica Biel in 2012.