Two new big budget 3D blockbuster updates for you today. The first is that Doug Liman (Go, The Bourne Identity, Jumper) is in negotiations to direct a new Three Musketeers for Warner Bros. [THR]
Paul W.S. Anderson is also working on a Musketeers film so it will be a race to the finish as both films are in 3D. The film will be produced by Lionel Wigram, who was behind the successful Sherlock Holmes last year. The Men Who Stare at Goats screenwriter Peter Straughan has written the script which tells the story “of a young man named D’Artagnan as he joins forces with three veteran and disgraced French musketeers to stop the villainous Cardinal Richelieu.” No cast or release date has been set yet.
The next update is that the third xXx film has left Columbia Pictures and headed to Paramount for a “late 2011 or early 2012 release.” Original helmer Rob Cohen will return to direct Vin Diesel and shoot with 3D cameras, Deadline NY reports. The script has been written by Michael Ferris and John Brancato and follows Xander Cage as he is left for dead, but returns to execute a very difficult assignment that only he can pull off. Sounds riveting.
Samuel L. Jackson is back as Agent Augustus Gibbons and “most of the action takes place in Europe.” Cohen left his Medieval project for it and had this to say:
I left the project because I had a very strong instinct it would never get made at Sony, that it wasn’t picking up the critical mass and traction that a movie needs. I got along very well with everybody there, from top to bottom, but in these recession times, you make your picks carefully and it always comes down to judgment calls based on taste and the objectives you’re trying to meet for the studio. For whatever reason, Paramount sees the future of this, and we’re in a very positive place at a new home where there is genuine enthusiasm.
Cohen, who is shooting the first 3D Coke commercial is very positive about the technology:
I feel what we did in the beginning of the decade was bring a different attitude to the action movie and a different kind of hero. With the new 3D instrument and the techniques I can apply, we can create a different kind of cutting-edge experience in 3D by shooting it that way from the beginning the way James Cameron did Avatar. This won’t be fantasy characters, it takes place on Earth in real time. That’s a new dimension to be explored, and I’m excited.
It’s gotta be better than The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Right?
What do you think about new Musketeers and xXx films?