Comic-Con: Paul W.S. Anderson Talks New ‘Three Musketeers’ Movie
Published on Jul 30th, 2010
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Written by Rocco Passafuime
rocco.a.passafuime@gmail.com
In addition to our chat with Wentworth Miller, we also talked to his Resident Evil: Afterlife director Paul W.S. Anderson, best known for his action/horror flicks like Mortal Kombat, Event Horizon, Death Race, and Alien Vs. Predator. The new Resident Evil flick was shot entirely on 3D cameras, Avatar-style — no crappy Last Airbender-style 3D conversion process here — and opens late this summer.
Anderson shared with us a few juicy updates about his upcoming new Hollywood film version of the classic Alexandre Dumas serial The Three Musketeers.
“We start shooting in four and a half weeks,” Anderson says, “So I better know everything about it. It’s the classic Three Musketeers tale. If you read the books and you go, it’s about D’Artagnan, young boy, dreams of being a Musketeer, travels to Paris, falls in with the Three Musketeers, Cardinal Richelieu is trying to outmaneuver the king and queen, trying to embarrass the queen using these diamonds that have been stolen and taken to London. The Musketeers have to go to London, get the diamonds back, rush forward as Richelieu’s henchmen are trying to stop them.”
Yep, that about covers it. Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson) stars as D’Artagnan while the rest of the cast includes Orlando Bloom, Christoph Waltz, and — of course — Milla Jovovich.
Anderson goes on to say how he will make this latest film rendition stand out — given that a new version seems to come out every few years, like 2001′s The Musketeer with Justin Chambers and 1993′s The Three Musketeers with Chris O’Donnell, Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, and Oliver Platt.
“It’s the classic story, it’s exactly the story, but it’s told with a contemporary edge and we’re kind of in the post-Pirates Of The Carribean world right now,” Paul explains, “And for me, those are the paradigm when you look at those kinds of films and those kinds of stories.”
“You read the original Three Musketeers books, he’s writing Pirates Of The Caribbean, he’s writing these fantastic cliffhanger episodes because the book was originally serialized,” he adds, “It’s sexy, it’s fun, it’s got jokes in it, it’s got action in it, so that’s what we’re making. We’re making The Three Musketeers, but we’re making it through the lens of Pirates Of The Carribean.”
The Three Musketeers stories in the world of Hollywood film have always been a showcase for great acting talent, and Paul trusts his cast.
“[Casting] was really difficult,” he says, “Most of the movies I make focus on one character, if it’s Resident Evil, it’s Milla, and if it’s Death Race, it’s Jason Statham. For me, this is really the first, since Event Horizon, I think, the first big broad ensemble that I’ve made. The chemistry, it’s very difficult and it’s delicate, and we took a long time to get it right. We took so long over it. Warner Bros. announced they were making a Three Musketeers movie as well and we’re in a race with Warner Bros. and we kept plodding along and kind of doing our thing and putting the pieces in place.”
“Interestingly, the first actor that we put in place is Christoph Waltz, who I had seen in Inglourious Basterds and just loved him,” Anderson continues, “This was before he had won his Oscar. I had met him and he was a fan of Three Musketeers and he’d seen the Gene Kelly version. I don’t know if you ever seen it. It’s fantastic. He must have been in his mid-50′s when he played D’Artagnan. I swear, the guy who’s playing his father is younger than he is when he wishes the young D’Artagnan off to seek his fortune, but somehow, because it’s Gene Kelly, it kind of works. So he was the first piece we put in place. We’re really delighted with the ensemble that has grown out of that. It’s Oscar-winning actors, action stars, fantastic European actors. Really, it’s an exciting cast.
“It’s an ensemble,” he reveals, “So I mean I know it’s called The Three Musketeers, but Logan Lerman plays D’Artagnan. Matthew MacFadyen is Athos, you might know from Pride And Prejudice, Mr. Darcy, in a fantastic, glaring performance. Ray Stevenson is Porthos, he’s this huge bear of a man, he’s fantastic. Luke Evans, who was in Clash Of The Titans and you’ll see him in Immortals soon. He’s the male lead in Tamara Drews, Stephen Frears’s new movie, he’s Aramus. Planchet is played by James Cordon, who is a huge British comedian. He’s like the next Ricky Gervais. In England, he’s more famous than Ricky Gervais, so he’s kind of the next international star from Britain to come into the comedy field.”
“And then, the bad guys,” Paul continues, “Christoph Waltz is Richelieu, Mads Mikkelson, whom you undoubtedly know from Casino Royale and many other good movies, is Rochefort. Orlando Bloom is the Duke of Buckingham, which I’m very excited about because he hasn’t been in a major studio movie because he stayed away from studio films after the last Pirates Of The Caribbean. So for him to come back and do another swashbuckling movie, but this time playing a bad guy, I’m very excited about. And then, there’s Milla as the evil and sexy miss Milady De Winter.”
Paul also revealed why he plans to shoot the film in Germany.
“We’re shooting in Germany for two reasons,” he says, “One, we need a lot of big sets that we’re building and were shooting in Babelsberg in Berlin because they have the biggest stages in Europe. And the other is, we’re shooting a lot in Bavaria because they have these unbelievable castles and palaces there that for me are very exciting because they’ve never really been put on film before or if they were put on film, it was like 35 years ago.”
“There’s one place, which is unbelievable, this hall of mirrors,” Anderson adds, “It’s stunning. You couldn’t build this thing as a visual effect. It’s so big, so striking, and built how the things were built 300 years ago when labor didn’t mean anything. You could have thousands of people build something, so the detail and the workmanship is amazing. And the last filmmaker to make a movie there was Luchino Visconti 35 years ago and his Italian grips hammered nails into the walls, at which point, the German government said no more filming here, so we’re the first movie to go back to this particular location for 35 years.”
Anderson also shared why he felt Austrian actor Christopher Waltz, who won the Best Supporting Oscar for his role this year as SS soldier Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, felt would make the perfect villain in The Three Musketeers.
“When you meet him, he’s clearly a very, very intelligent man,” Paul explains, “He’s very, very clever. I thought what was mesmerizing about Inglorious Basterds was that, and I had to watch the movie again, basically, for the first 20 minutes, nothing happens. It’s just him sitting with his pipe and it’s mesmerizing and I think he understands evil and he understands people and I think when people play villains, you do the Dennis Hopper approach, which he was fantastic at, with speed and all those really over-the-top performances, which are great.”
“But I think what Christoph does is he’s got a more humanistic approach to evil,” he continues, “I think that’s what makes him quite chilling and mesmerizing as well, because you’re like, ‘He’s nasty and I can’t stop watching him. I kind of really like him as well, even though he’s a despicable human being. The character, not him, the character he plays, you’re still mesmerized by him. Really, it’s the weirdest thing. That’s the greatest thing about Richler is that he’s the bad guy, but in a way, you kind of understand his point-of-view.”
As well as why he felt Orlando Bloom was also perfect for his role as the equally evil Duke Of Buckingham.
“I’m a big fan of him,” Anderson gushes, “I always thought he should be in this movie and I never thought we’d get him, because I always thought he’d say, ‘No, it’s too much like Pirates. I don’t want to do another movie like that.’ Because Orlando, I always felt he had been straitjacketed into playing the good guy. He’s like a lass and you can’t get any better than that, he’s so noble and so…and then, in Pirates, he’s the noble guy.”
“And I think that’s why he stopped doing studio movies because he felt he was being tapped as the good guy and he had these depths that he wanted to show,” he adds, “The Duke of Buckingham is a nasty piece of work. And I can’t tell you how excited Orlando is to play kind of like a nasty guy. I mean, he’s just such a nice man and he’s so excited about the movie. If I had to tell him that to go to Germany and start help building the sets right now, I think he’d leave Miranda Kerr and go, ‘I have to go and help build some sets.”
Finally, Anderson addressed a rumor that filming on The Three Musketeers was delayed due to his honeymoon with his Resident Evil star Milla Jovovich.
“Listen, I got married and then for my honeymoon, we went and shot this Resident Evil movie,” he remarks, “And I only got to go on my honeymoon earlier this year. So that’s what Milla and I did for our honeymoon, we killed zombies, and then we went on our honeymoon after making the movie.”
“So, no, we’re hitting the dates,” Paul continues, “In fact, we brought the shoot forward two weeks because of the weather situation. We wanted to use these fantastic locations, but then, the weather gets kind of dodgy in Europe at that time of year, so we brought the shoot forward.”
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