It seems that when Warner announced a couple of months ago they were fast-tracking a 3D live action version of The Three Musketeers, and that Doug Liman was going to direct, they’d assumed they’d be able to get their version in the can before Paul W.S. Anderson’s take, which has been in development for over a year and at that point didn’t seem like it was going to be made anytime soon.
However they werre wrong, as it seems that because of Warner’s move, Anderson has redoubled his efforts, assembled his cast, sold the international distirbution rights and will start filming this summer.
That’s rather left Warner’s plans in limbo, and while at the moment they’re not saying they’re going to kill their Musketeer movie, it’s seeming increasingly likely they’ll either give up on the idea or at least delay it. That certainly seems to be their thinking, as Liman has been talking to Warner about taking on a different movie, based on the Japanese novel All You Need Is Kill, which the studio picked up the rights to in a massive $3 million deal earlier this year.
All You Need Is Kill puts a Groundhog Day plot device into a futuristic alien invasion storyline. A raw recruit, pressed into battle against an alien species, gets killed in action. But he is reborn each day to suffer the same fate. Eventually, he notices that he is becoming a better warrior and that other circumstances are changing, which might be the key to altering the outcome. Doesn’t that sound like it could be cool, even if it is a bit like a computer game?
While other directors, such as Sam Raimi, have toyed with directing, it seems Liman is very interested, and with Warner wanting to move on All You Need Is Kill quickly (the plan is to get it into cinemas by the end of next year, partly due to the deal over the rights to the book demanding a fast schedule), meaning Doug’s Musketeers would be pretty much deceased.