Doug Liman in Talks to Direct Warner Bros' THE THREE MUSKETEERS
The race between Summit and Warner Bros' to bring the classic Alexandre Dumas-novel The Three Musketeers to the big-screen just got more interesting! Well, as interesting as yet another adaptation of this story can get...
It looked like Summit's Paul W.S Anderson-directed 3D version of the tale had the leg up, as it is currently in the casting stage with aims to shoot this summer. As fun as Anderson's films can be -- Resident Evil, Death Race -- they are low budget fare that don't age well, i.e Mortal Kombat, Alien Vs. Predator etc.
Warner Bros' on the other hand, has had its eyes on higher tier directors for its Three Musketeers pic, which is being scripted by Peter Straughan (The Men Who Stare At Goats) and produced by Lionel Wigram. Wigram is looking to update Dumas' swashbuckling tale to appeal to young, contemporary audiences, much in the same way he did for Guy Ritchies' take on Cona Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.
Now Warner Bros. is currently in talks with Doug Liman to direct the picture, which would put it on a different stratosphere for me. Liman's low-budget pics like Go and Swingers are classics, that for me, get better with age. But it's his big-budget action films like The Bourne Identity and Mr. & Mrs. Smith that likely have Warner Bros. vying for him. Even though both of those films earned Liman a reputation for going over budget and running messy productions, they were both huge hits -- besides, Paul Greengrass ruffled green feathers with his Bourne films as well. Liman had been on Warner Bros. shortlist of directors, which also included David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada).
Anderson is currently filming the fourth installment of the Resident Evil franchise, Resident Evil: Afterlife. Liman recently wrapped production on the Naomi Watts and Sean Penn film Fair Game, the true story of Valerie Plame, the CIA agent whose status was leaked to the public by the White House.
Who's version of THE THREE MUSKETEERS would you rather see?