A new outdoor poster for Frank Miller‘s The Spirit was posted online at the film’s official forum.

See the poster here at right and click for larger view.

The image is actually a three-poster series, according to SHH, which posted the image today in its triptych form.

The poster art is easily comparable to Miller’s Sin City comic book series and its 2005 faithful film adaptation, which Miller co-directed with Robert Rodriguez. The Spirit marks Miller’s solo directing debut.

Post #4 of Miller’s production blog (located at the film’s official site) focuses on the character Ellen Dolan, who’s played by Sarah Paulson in the film. Miller says that Spirit creator Will Eisner’s Ellen was a weak and “lousy” character. For his screenplay, Miller turned Ellen into “Dr. Ellen Dolan, the surgeon who knows more about [The Spirit’s] unusual powers of recuperation than any other doctor on earth.”

The Spirit, which stars Samuel L. Jackson, Gabriel Macht, Scarlett Johansson, and Eva Mendes, hits theaters on January 16, 2009.

Synopsis

Adapted from the legendary comic book series created by Will Eisner, The Spirit is a classic action-adventure-romance written for the screen and directed by genre-twister Frank Miller (creator of “300” and “Sin City”). It is the story of a former rookie cop who returns mysteriously from the dead as the Spirit (Gabriel Macht) to fight crime from the shadows of Central City. His arch-enemy, the Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson) has a different mission: he’s going to wipe out Spirit’s beloved city as he pursues his own version of immortality. The Spirit tracks this cold-hearted killer from Central City’s rundown warehouses, to the damp catacombs, to the windswept waterfront… all the while facing a bevy of beautiful women who either want to seduce, love or kill our masked crusader. Surrounding him at every turn are Ellen Dolan (Sarah Paulson), the whip-smart girl-next-door; Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson), a punk secretary and frigid vixen; Plaster of Paris (Paz Vega), a murderous French nightclub dancer; Lorelei (Jaime King), a phantom siren; and Morgenstern (Stana Katic), a sexy young cop. Then of course, there’s Sand Saref (Eva Mendes), the jewel thief with dangerous curves. She’s the love of his life turned bad. Will he save her or will she kill him? In the vein of Batman Begins and Sin City, The Spirit takes us on a sinister, gut-wrenching ride with a hero who is born, murdered and born again.

Official site: MyCityScreams