The legendary swashbuckling The Three Musketeers are returning to the big screen, for a duo of films being made back to back.
Alexandre Dumas’ 19th century book The Three Musketeers has proved fertile ground for film adaptations throughout the years, with every generation getting their own take on the iconic trio. Whether it’s the 1940s Gene Kelly version, the 1970s Oliver Reed-starring brace of films, the 90s version with the Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams theme song that we still find ourselves humming in the shower, or the upcoming animated Dogtanian And The Three Muskahounds , musketeer movies are a regular occurrence on cinema screens.
Now it seems we’ll be getting two new films with a distinctly European flavour from Chapter 2, Pathé and a number of other European production companies.
Martin Bourboulon, who most recently directed the upcoming tale of the Eiffel Tower’s construction, Eiffel, will direct both films. The first movie will be titled The Three Musketeers – D’Artagnan, whilst the second will be called The Three Musketeers – Milady.
The scripts have been written by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière. The budget for the project is said to be $73m.
Casting is coming together nicely, with La Haine's Vincent Kassel playing Athos, I Kissed A Girl's Pio Marmaï as Porthos, Romain Duris as Aramis, Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps as Queen Anne of Austria, Louis Garrel as King Louis XIII, Lyna Khoudri (soon to be seen in The French Dispatch) as Constance Bonacieux, and The Invisible Man’s Oliver Jackson-Cohen as the Duke of Buckingham.
Eva Green will play Milady, whilst Frank's François Civil will take on the role of D’artagnan.
The film will also be feature the character of Hannibal, the first black musketeer in French history.
“We feel a great deal of responsibility to protect the work of Dumas whilst offering an authentic and exciting cinematic saga for today’s audiences,” said Chapter 2 CEO Dimitri Rassam.
Also of note is the fact that the two films will shoot back to back. It was of course, the back to back shooting of 1973/4’s The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers that led to the Screen Actor’s Guild inserting the ‘Salkind Clause’ into all contractual agreements, ensuring that single film productions couldn’t be extended into multi-film productions without the actors’ consent.
As for the upcoming version of The Three Musketeers, we’ll bring you more news on this project as we hear it.
Image: BigStock
—
Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Stories Junior print magazines here.
Become a Patron here.
