Paul W.S. Anderson will direct a new adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s Les Trois Mousquetaires, aka The Three Musketeers. Anderson co-wrote the screenplay (read: run, run far away…) with Andrew Davies (Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Tailor of Panama), and plans to shoot the film in, wait for it… 3-D. UGH! If you’re not yet disgusted, please read on.

According to the article on HeatVision, Anderson intends for the film to have a contemporary feel. Here is the quote:

“We are definitely modernizing ‘The Three Musketeers’ without compromising the fun of shooting a period piece,” said Anderson, who hopes to shoot in France and Germany. “But in our film, corsets and feathered hats don’t take center stage. Our version is rich in eye-popping action, romance and adventure.”

So basically, Anderson wants to make a non-period period film, which will really just be a dumbed down B-action 3d spectacle? I wasn’t too interested in seeing The Three Musketeers back on the big screen again anyways, certainly not with Anderson at the helm, and definitely not based on his pitch. Is there any chance this movie will be any good? I’d recommend that anyone interested should probably just read the book instead (which is available for free thanks to Google).

Paul WS Anderson (not to be confused with Paul Thomas Anderson) has made a career directing bad video game adaptations (Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil trilogy) before moving on to equally bad Sci-Fi remakes/spin-offs (Alien vs. Predator, Death Race). His best film, the 1997 sci-fi film Event Horizon, earned critic quotes like “a retarded Goth version of 2001″ and “Anderson shoots things to look cool, but he has no grasp on how to modulate the visuals to carry the audience into the deepening nightmare of the plot.”

The plan is to begin shooting next year, with a tentative 2011 release date being eyed.