Just like he did with the legacy of detective Sherlock Holmes, producer Lionel Wigram will bring to us a new version of The Three Musketeers. A screenwriter for the project has already been found in the form of Peter Straughan (The Men Who Stare At Goats) with aims to update the tale for "young and contemporary audiences" (logically).

Variety reports that The Three Musketeers has been set up at Warner Bros. and ironically enough Wigram was once a WB exec who helped oversee the first three Harry Potter movies and now has a first-look deal with the studio. In the same fashion as the new Sherlock Holmes (which Wigram co-wrote and produced), this version of the Musketeers will play up the sexier and action-packed elements of the story.

Wigram sees franchise potential in The Three Musketeers, another thing it has in common with the newest Sherlock Holmes (Holmes 2 is set to start shooting soon ). There are three books written by Alexandre Dumas - The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After and The Vicomte de Bragalonne - which are collectively known as The D'Artagnan Romances. With so many adaptations over the years, it almost seems time for a modern version, no?

In case a new adaptation of The Three Musketeers is sounding a bit familiar to you, that's because last year we reported on the news that Paul W.S. Anderson (Death Race, Resident Evil) is also going to be helming a "modernized" 3D Musketeers. And then there's another adaptation - also just being referred to as The Three Musketeers - which we heard word of before the Anderson one and haven't heard about since.

Last year the Dumas written tale entered into the public domain and evidently it's highly in demand...

I'm behind this particular Three Musketeers project more than I am the Anderson one, simply because I don't like that Anderson's film is being done in 3D. To me Three Musketeers just isn't suited to the technology and only appears to be getting made in that form because every other movie is. I'll need to wait and see who they get as the director and stars for this adaptation (there's currently no word on either) before I judge it too much either way. But the writer of The Men Who Stare At Goats is a fine choice for a screenwriter and Wigram certainly brought Sherlock Holmes to modern audiences in a successful way. Time will tell if he can also do the same for the trio of famous Musketeers.

What do you think of The Three Musketeers getting the "Sherlock Holmes treatment?" Are you surprised there's so much interest in the story with three adaptations currently in the works? Who would you like to see direct and star in the movie?

Source: Variety