'Three Musketeers' remake in 2011

[EDSEL_PK]

Those swash-buckiling boys are back...

According to the IMDB, the latest incarnation of Alexandre Dumas' classic tale is slated to hit theaters next year.

Andrew Davies, best-known for non-action films such as the 'Bridget Jones' films and 'Doctor Zhivago' (2002), will again display his screenwriting talents for this film.

Logan Leman (aka 'Percy Jackson') will play D'Artagnan.

Matthew Macfadyen will portray Athos. Of his work, I'm hardly a fan. On 'MI-5' his acting was so bland and dry, I feared he'd spontaneously combust at any moment.

Ray Stevenson will be playing Porthos. This is an instant win for me. Titus Pullo was THE MAN!:clap:

Luke Evans rounds out the Fab Sword-swinging Four as Aramis.

More details here, at the IMDB...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1509767/

[Luthien_001]

heh. Orlando Bloom

Apparently there was another Musketeer movie coming out in 2012, being produced by Warner Bros and directed by Doug Liman, but that seems to be put on hold at the moment.

[Boomstick]

Meh. All those actors are lame, and they'd be hard pressed to top the Michael York Musketeers movies, anyway. Just my opinion, of course.

[EDSEL_PK]

Meh. All those actors are lame, and they'd be hard pressed to top the Michael York Musketeers movies, anyway. Just my opinion, of course.

The Michael York films were spectacular, and rank among the vest swordplay films ever.

[Zagor]

The Three Musketeers is one of my favourite books but I'm not sure if this will be any good or not. I like the cast (though Stevenson is about 20 years too old for Porthos). I'm worried about the fact that it's going to be 3D and it will be directed by Paul WS Anderson - smells of action movie to me so it will probably just be the 1993 version again.

I've never been that wowed by the Michael York films to be honest - give me the Gene Kelly one any day!

[august]

I agree with all of the above. At this stage, I'm not sure what benefit there could be to yet another version, unless perhaps it were a BBC mini-series that could tell the story in, say, 12 hours.

The director, Paul W.S. Anderson certainly has action credentials, but in a radically different sub-genre: the Resident Evil movies, the remake of Death Race, Alien vs. Predator, Soldier (the Kurt Russell film) Event Horizon and Mortal Kombat. Which explains Milla Jovovich as Milady. :laugh: If Orlando is playing Buckingham, guessing they will expand his role and hers. Not really familiar w/ a lot of these other actors, but they seem to have sterling credentials - this seems to be "legit" British actors mainly. Of course I LOVE Ray Stevenson although I never thought of Porthos as being that much older than D'Artagnan. Ten years, maybe, but 25?

Of course the Michael York version and its sequel(s) are among my favotire films of all time, but it's sadly forgotten - even though I think it's humor makes it even more accessible in the new millenium.

What I'd REALLY like to see is a new film version of the sequels that Dumas wrote, Twenty Years After (which was the basis for the direct-to-cable film Return of the Musketeers from the late 80's) and The Vicomte de Bragelonne.

[Zagor]

I agree with all of the above. At this stage, I'm not sure what benefit there could be to yet another version, unless perhaps it were a BBC mini-series that could tell the story in, say, 12 hours.

I've long wished the BBC would do a drama of it - God knows they must have adapted every other classic going.

The director, Paul W.S. Anderson certainly has action credentials, but in a radically different sub-genre: the Resident Evil movies, the remake of Death Race, Alien vs. Predator, Soldier (the Kurt Russell film) Event Horizon and Mortal Kombat. Which explains Milla Jovovich as Milady. :laugh:

I do like some of his films but they're just so different from what Musketeers should be that I'm unsure whether he can pull it off. Porthos is supposed to be older than Aramis (who's 3 years older than D'Artagnan) but younger than Athos (who's 9 years older than D'Artagnan).

What I'd REALLY like to see is a new film version of the sequels that Dumas wrote, Twenty Years After (which was the basis for the direct-to-cable film Return of the Musketeers from the late 80's) and The Vicomte de Bragelonne.

Definitely. Twenty Years After is an even better book in my opinion and I hated the Return of the Musketeers (apart from the exceution of Charles I which it captured brilliantly).

[RobRoy]

I don’t think there’s been a version of this story that I haven’t enjoyed to at least some degree, and that includes that awful The Musketeer which reduced Athos, Porthos and Aramis to bit players, all in awe and in the shadow of D'Artagnan. Yes, I even liked that one. The Three Musketeers that came out in the 90s with Sutherland and company was a rollicking good fun ride, and Tim Curry plays such a wonderful villain. Michael York has always bothered me as D'Artagnan, but I did like the films; Richard Chamberlain, though, is awesome. Even the dreary The Man in the Iron Mask with DiCaprio and company had some enjoyable moments for me.

So I don't mind another attempt at this classic.

[Zagor]

The 1993 version did have a cheesy charm to it. It wasn't a great movie, but I certainly didn't hate it. But I don't think we need another Musketeer film in the same vein.

[august]

Looking at the credits of the cast, this new one does seem to be in the vein of those BBC-type productions, with the addition of Milla Jovovich, since that was the background Orlando came from prior to LotR. Which bodes well for this one. The director seems an odd match...but then if you think, Richard Lester, the director of the 70's version, was best known as a director of rock-and-roll movies, and there were more than a few eyebrows raised when word came out that there was going to be a new version of the Three Musketeers with Raquel Welch, and with Charlton Heston in a supporting role. Fortunately people like York, Reed and Lee were instantly recognizable from other swashbuckling and period roles, though, and people sort of realized "wow, Heston really is 50 - ok, I guess I can go with this then.... "

[RobRoy]

The director seems an odd match...but then if you think, Richard Lester, the director of the 70's version, was best known as a director of rock-and-roll movies . . . [snip]

It seems some directors really can rise to the occasion (although others might sink). This reminded me of Nicholas Meyer who directed The Wrath of Khan. Prior to directing this seminal Trek film, and pretty much saving the Trek franchise, Meyer had only done the best-forgotten film Time After Time, which has very limited special effects, and it really not that good. He was better known as a writer, having published the Sherlock Holmes The Seven-Per-Cent Solution.

I wonder how many other directors we could say have risen to the challenge, directing themselves out of obscurity. Peter Jackson seems to come to mind, though I think it was only a matter of time for him.

[Zagor]

It seems some directors really can rise to the occasion

This quotation from Anderson in the latest issue of Empire magazine doesn't exactly fill me with confidence:

(Speaking on Resident Evil: Afterlife) "I'm not expecting to release a movie to massive critical acclaim. And in fact I should probably be quite worried if I ever did, because it probably wouldn't make any money!"

[august]

Well, if you're making a sequel to a critically-panned action/zombie-genre movie based on a video game... that's probably the best attitude to have! :bg:

But yep, Metyer is a good example. No one really knew, in the pre-internet age, that Meyer was an avid Trekkie, or that his degrees were actually in film-making and theatre (so he would have formally studied directing.) His success had been in doing popular pastiches of Victorian melodramas (his two Holmes novels) that mixed fictional and historical characters, and jazzing them up for modern audiences; from there, directing directing a movie adaptation of another writer's story that basically did the same thing was not too much of a stretch.

What no one realized until later was that his real talent was not in recreating the Victorian feel, but rather in being able to replicate other writers' style, from Doyle to Wells to Roddenberry.

[RobRoy]

[Zagor]

[RobRoy]

[Zagor]

Really? You disliked the first Resident Evil?

No, I like them all. To be honest I barely remember the 2nd one, only that at the time I enjoyed it more than the first though it's quite possible it is the weaker movie. The third is by far my favourite though - the post apocalyptic setting made it more interesting to me.

[RobRoy]

No, I like them all. To be honest I barely remember the 2nd one, only that at the time I enjoyed it more than the first though it's quite possible it is the weaker movie. The third is by far my favourite though - the post apocalyptic setting made it more interesting to me.

Ahhh, I see. An appeal to setting. I totally get that. The setting worked for me too. I tend to enjoy those films myself.

[Boomstick]

I like the 'Resident Evil' movies for what they are, but that writer/director doesn't strike me as a obvious choice for a Musketeers movie. Still, maybe he just needs an opportunity to show that he can do that sort of thing as well.

[august]

Yep. And conceivably he has a background or a personal interest in that era, or genre, but has just gone where the work was. Like the Nicholas Meyer example above. Or like if one had seen, say, The Gift, For the Love of the Game and A Simple Plan, and wondered why that director was going to do Spider-Man movies.

Or if we want an old school example, imagining that the rapid-fire wisecracks and pratfalls from screwball comedies like Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Monkey Business (the Cary Grant one, not the Marx Bros.) and I Was a Male War Birde were directed by the same Howard Hawks who did terse, gritty, laconic violent films like Scarface, Air Force, Red River or the first Dawn Patrol would seem insane.

Then again, if he's got good production designers to make everything look good and authentic, there's no reason he can't say to an actor "OK, stab the Cardinal's Guard with a little bit more menace in your eyes, but then give a look like you're exhausted" in the same way that previousy he would have said "OK, stab the zombie with a little bit more menace in your eyes, but then give a look like you're exhausted" or "OK, stab the Predator with a little bit more menace in your eyes, but then give a look like you're exhausted." :laugh: