Box Office Mojo report that
Paul W.S. Anderson's new 3-D version of
The Three Musketeers has been given an April 15th 2011 release date by Summit Entertainment. This means it will go directly up against Wes Craven's
Scream 4 (the latter previously
was slated for a Tuesday opening, but IMDB list the usual Friday bow). Presumably Anderson is desperate to get his Joe Popcorn friendly action/adventure period yarn in theatres well before
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides that's slated for May 20th, and decided to go up against a 10 year dormant slasher franchise rather than;
Your Highness (opening the week before),
Red Riding Hood (the week after), Marvel's
Thor (coming two weeks after). Still, it's a ballsy move from Summit as the original
Scream was one of the highest grossing movies of 1996 ($103 million), and the sequels didn't perform too badly either (
Scream 3 is the lowest with $89 million).
With the current movement of classic horror revivals that has allowed profitable opening weekends for
Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street recently, it takes some cajones from Summit to do battle with a proven success. However with a cast that looks like this, maybe they have a right to hold a FTW attitude;
Matthew Macfadyen as Athos,
Luke Evans as Aramis,
Ray Stevenson as Porthos and
Logan Lerman as D'Artagnan,
Christoph Waltz as Cardinal Richelieu,
Mads Mikkelsen as Rochefort,
Milla Jovovich as Milady de Winter and
Orlando Bloom as the Duke of Buckingham.
Attention now turns to Warner Bros. and
Fair Game/Bourne Identity director
Doug Liman who is
also developing a Three Musketeers movie. After looking at Paul W.S. Anderson's cast do they scrape their project, rush it into production in a race to beat them (highly improbable) or play the risky card of opening AFTER such a high-profile picture?
DISCUSS: Right now, taking in all the facts we know and the casting for both
The Three Musketeers and
Scream 4 - which movie are you most likely to see (if any) on April 15th 2011?