And why wouldn't he? Snyder is in his element: chatting about comic books at a computer store, surrounded by laptops and geeks.

The 42-year-old director is making the case for his March 6 film, Watchmen, before a standing-room-only crowd of fanboys at an Apple store. He has slides, videos and a few secrets to spill to help sell his adaptation of a graphic novel once considered too dark, violent and sprawling to become Hollywood hay.

Coming from any other director, the pitch might seem desperate, particularly in front of a group of devotees who love to test — and deride — a filmmaker's knowledge of the illustrated arts.

But after the unexpected success of his last film, 300, another graphic-novel adaptation, Snyder has become something of a nerd king, an auteur for comic-book fans who consider him one of three directors (along with Sam Raimi and Christopher Nolan) who can be trusted with their beloved material.

Privately, though, Snyder knows such standing is tenuous. He's aware of how skeptical even his faithful are about a movie version of one of the most revered graphic novels ever.

Not that the challenge dissuades Snyder. If anything, he courts the doubters who have been hounding him since he made the jump from television commercials to feature films five years ago to remake George Romero's Dawn of the Dead.

"I actually got death threats for doing Dawn," he says after the presentation, which ended in wild applause from fans who showed up as much to see the director as the footage.

"Can you believe that? Death threats. Over a movie. People were so angry that I'd touch something that was such a cult favorite. You always are going to get people who want to cut you down, especially when you make risky movies."

Still, it's hard to underestimate the gamble of Watchmen, a three-year production that marks Warner Bros.' $100 million bet that the genre is flop-proof.

Watchmen, though, is not your typical caped-crusader story. The graphic novel's fan base remains relatively small — certainly not large enough to make the movie profitable. Most moviegoers would have a hard time naming one character from the books.

Add to that bone-splintering violence that makes The Dark Knight look like a Saturday installment of Super Friends, and Snyder finds himself with an R-rated film that will be a measure not only of the genre's popularity, but also his own.

"At first I didn't want to make the movie," he says. "I was like everyone else. I didn't want to see Hollywood (mess) it up with some watered-down story where the good guys win, the bad guys lose and no one really gets hurt. Then I figured it ought to be someone who knows and loves the material. And if I didn't do it, someone else would."

The first 'anti-comic'

Certainly people tried over the years. Written by Alan Moore in 1985 as a 12-part comic book, the story of jaded crime fighters fed up with mankind was hailed almost immediately as a masterwork, a Catcher in the Rye for the Reagan generation.

Later compiled into a graphic novel, the book became the first anti-comic, a chronicle of flawed heroes coping with inner demons as wicked as the villains they chased.

"When I was in college, people would say to me, 'You read a lot of comics, don't you?' " Snyder says. "I'd hand them Watchmen and say, 'Just read this,' to show them I wasn't a dork."

Watchmen reveled in vice. Daring and preposterous, it features frontal male nudity, murder and attempted rape among superheroes and an alien squid that destroys half of New York. Time magazine listed it among the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century.

But the subject matter and scope of the story (which includes a stint on Mars) stymied studios unsure how to adapt the tale's graphic violence and sexuality, as well as the special effects the story would require.

Having bounced from studio to studio, Watchmen required legal wrangling as well. Twentieth Century Fox sued Warner Bros. last year, claiming it still owned some of the rights to the property. The studios settled out of court last month for an undisclosed amount.

And filmmakers got no help from its creator. Moore, who detested film versions of his other stories (including The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), demanded his name be taken off the credits.

"A lot of people would have left their name on it, just to cash in; it's what you do in Hollywood," says Dave Gibbons, who illustrated Watchmen. "And it's too bad, because I think he would have liked Zack. You couldn't find anyone who loved it more."

In truth, Snyder wasn't crazy about the script the studio sent him. Instead of using the book's original Cold War setting, screenwriters updated the comic to center on the war on terror. There was no sex, no graphic violence, and a superhero of questionable character was killed off. Worse, it was to be rated PG-13.

"I thought, hell no," Snyder says. "So I put everything in that they wanted out, and then some. Honestly, I went a little over the top." He added gore galore, an ambiguous ending and the private parts of a superhero who goes blue and in the buff.

Lots of ink on the squid

Snyder pauses. He decides to put to rest the Internet debate that has raged since he began filming in Vancouver: the city-smashing squid.

"There's no squid," he says. "Anywhere. No footage. We changed the ending. I'm hoping that fans can get that out of the way before they see it because, really, it's not that big a deal. What they should be worried about is what the studio originally wanted the movie to be. That's a lot scarier."

But the changes unnerved even some members of the cast. Jackie Earle Haley, who plays the uncompromising crime fighter Rorschach, says he was thrown off by how the film amps up the violence from the comic, particularly a scene in which he hacks a criminal to death.

"Zack makes it all very realistic," Haley says. "For that scene, he got a dummy that weighed and felt like a real guy. I got a twinge, hacking away on him. But that's why fans love him. He doesn't back down."

But comic-book fans can be sticklers for detail, says Garth Franklin of the entertainment site DarkHorizons.com. And while early reviews have been glowing — "Geeks will love it!" Defamer.com declared — opening weekend will determine its fate.

"Right now, there's excitement but still some caution," Franklin says. "After 300, people knew he could stay close to the spirit of the graphic novel. But there's a little concern that Hollywood flash and trickery could overtake the story."

And if it does, Franklin says, Snyder could find himself in poor standing with an Internet community that can turn on director after a single misstep. Bryan Singer was considered a comic-book ingénue with the X-Men franchise until the morbid Superman Returns "ruined his reputation," Franklin says.

"It doesn't take much to get fans to turn on you," Franklin says. "But right now, Zack is golden, because the fans consider him one of their own."

'He's not who people think he is'

Snyder doesn't look the part of über-geek. He's a gym rat with tattoos on his muscular arms, including the name of his wife, Deborah, in old English typeface.

Born in Green Bay, Snyder grew up on comic books and Star Wars films. (He has a life-size statue of Han Solo in carbon freeze.) He began making movies when he was 11, his first being a stop-action film using his Star Wars figures, who fought a monster made of clay.

He studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., before directing commercials for Audi, BMW and Subaru. A father of six, he still lives in Pasadena to avoid running into studio executives at trendy Beverly Hills hot spots.

"We'd rather be at home watching Lost than talking business or getting photographed," says Deborah Snyder, a producer on the film. "He's not who people think he is."

Even his actors aren't sure what to make of him. 300 star Gerard Butler says he was expecting to meet "this bookish geek who just lived comics."

Instead, "here's this guy with tattoos and forearms as big as my thighs," he says. "He does have this enthusiasm that you only get from loving the material. He has a bit of the nerd in him. But he could still kick your (butt)."

In many ways, Snyder relishes the fervor — positive and negative — that comes from the denizens of Internet and comic-book devotees.

"I may get 100 e-mails from people who hate what I did," he says. "But I'll also get pictures of people who have scenes from 300 tattooed on their backs. Seriously. You're not going to see people with He's Just Not That Into You tattoos. You may hate my movie, but if you're talking about it, debating it, then I've done what I set out to do."

Which could make choosing future projects tricky.

"I'm not sure where we go from here," he says. "Maybe we'll adapt Catcher in the Rye."