SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- Good thing he didn't marry a Klingon.

Because right now Comic-Con is one of the few places where Guy Ritchie can interact with thousands of pop-culture aficionados and field more questions about his work than his much-publicized marriage.

His wife is Madonna, by the way. You may have heard of her.

"It's a relief to be around people who are enthusiasts. Essentially that's why I'm here," the 39-year-old director tells Sun Media. "That does it make easier and inspiring. They know stuff. It's fun for me. It's refreshing."

And more palatable presumably than being bombarded with queries about his and Madonna's supposedly disintegrating union. (As someone with geekly tendencies myself, I can only surmise this illustrates a lack of interest in both the Material Mom and in Yankees slugger Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez. Why? Just guessing, but 1) we don't like jocks and 2) girls like her scare us.)

So even though Ritchie isn't offering up personal details, he is signing autographs and chatting with fans in the hope of putting a spotlight on RocknRolla.

Starring Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton, Ludacris and Jeremy Piven, the crime thriller marks his return to the gangster genre. Instead of marble-mouthed boxing gypsies -- like the one Brad Pitt played in Snatch -- or the harrowing card games of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, RocknRolla offers up territorial clashes between old British gang-lords and new Russian mobsters.

"England has changed so much in the past 15, 20 years and so has the world of crime," Ritchie says. "The old-school gangster is being pushed out by the new school, and an aspect of that is Eastern European or Russian gangster ... I just like under-cultures and subcultures. It just happens to be my thing. (Plus) it's in the same genre as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, and I wanted to do it partly because of the enthusiasm that those films received."

As opposed to, say, 2002's Swept Away in which his wife starred, or last year's Kabbalah-themed thriller Revolver which barely squeaked into theatres. Despite the critical drubbing the latter received, he expresses no regrets.

"I always knew (Revolver) was going to a tricky sell because of its ambition. But it's exactly how I set out to make it. It divided opinion. But by its very definition that's what it was designed to do."

Besides, returning to London to shoot films now allows Ritchie to explore old turf that he's seen for the past few years through the eyes of his American wife. He says it's been a process of rediscovery. He's even opened his own pub. "Once a spy," he notes with a smile, "I've become a tourist."