Premiere - The Three Musketeers d’Artagnan  : Our feedback on the private screening Club Allociné

By Mulder, Paris, Forum des images, 29 march 2023

Our media was invited tonight to the private screening of the film The Three Musketeers d'Artagnan at Club Allociné. The screening was followed by a Q&A with the director Martin Bourboulon, the actress Eva Green and the main actors François Civil, Pio Marmaï and Romain Duris. We propose you to relive this meeting with our video shot in 4K.

You can discover also our photos on our Flickr page

The Three Musketeers is a set of two French feature films directed by Martin Bourboulon adapting the work of the same name by Alexandre Dumas. The first part entitled The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan will be released in early 2023. It will be followed by the second part entitled The Three Musketeers: Milady.

D'Artagnan, a feisty young Gascon, is left for dead after trying to save a young woman from being kidnapped. Once in Paris, he tries by all means to find his attackers, but he does not know that his quest will lead him to the heart of a real war where the future of France is at stake...

The beginnings of the project date back to 2019. It was at that time that producer Dimitri Rassam listed half a dozen works (including Les Rois maudits) that could be adapted for the big screen. After sounding out a few major European territories", he settled on The Three Musketeers. At the beginning of 2020, he brought on board screenwriters Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière, who had already considered adapting Dumas' novel into a play before giving up. Director Martin Bourboulon joined the team shortly after, while in post-production on his film Eiffel. The four men know each other well, having already worked together on the films Papa ou Maman 1 and 2. Most of the writing takes place during the first containment of 2020. It was quickly decided to adapt the novel into two films and pre-production and casting were launched while only the first script was completed. The project is announced to the press during 2020. 

This diptych is thought to be a response to the American franchises that will create the event according to the producer Dimitri Rassam. To give an idea of the tone of the adaptation, he evokes a mixture between Cyrano de Bergerac (1990) by Jean-Paul Rappeneau and the Indiana Jones saga. He also specifies that he and Martin Bourboulon reviewed several other films before shooting for inspiration, including Ridley Scott's The Duelists (1977) and Patrice Chéreau's Queen Margot (1994)8. For their part, the screenwriters also nourished their adaptation with historical documentation, relying, for example, on the correspondence between Louis XIII and Richelieu or on accounts of duels of the time.

Martin Bourboulon situates the tone of the films between the thriller and the royal western, all supported by an immersive narration with sequence shots and stunts performed by the actors. In fact, according to stunt coordinator Dominique Fouassier, the production made it a point of honor that all the actors do their fights... We have understudies to prepare the fights but they are the ones who do all the fights ". In fact, the actors underwent fencing training under the direction of Olympic epee champion Yannick Borel before shooting.

This diptych is a complete adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' novel. As soon as the project was announced, the two films were scheduled to be shot simultaneously, for a total of 27 weeks of production and a budget of approximately 70 million euros. This method required the creation of two editing teams working in parallel, each one taking care of one film5. In February 2021, Pathé unveiled the cast of the main roles: François Civil (D'Artagnan), Eva Green (Milady), Vincent Cassel (Athos), Romain Duris (Aramis), Pio Marmaï (Porthos), Lyna Khoudri (Constance Bonacieux), Louis Garrel (Louis XIII), Vicky Krieps (Anne of Austria).

The filming begins on August 16, 2021. The entire shooting will take place in France, and, except for one day in the studio, completely in natural settings. At the beginning of September 2021, the team filmed in Compiègne and then went to the city of Saint-Malo, notably to the Fort National, which was used as a stand-in for the fortifications of La Rochelle, as well as to the beach of the Éventail. The Bonaparte beach in Plouha was also used as a backdrop, as well as the Fort la Latte in Plévenon. These settings in the Côtes-d'Armor were used as a backdrop for the scenes of the siege of La Rochelle, presented in the second film. Filming also took place in the Île-de-France region, notably in Paris (Hôtel des Invalides, the Louvre Palace) and in Seine-et-Marne (Fontainebleau castle, the episcopal city and Meaux cathedral), as well as in the Oise region (Chantilly and Mériel castles), the Yvelines (Saint-Germain-en-Laye castle) and the Hauts-de-Seine.

In January 2022, the filming resumed after a one-month break. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the two films were shot at the same time and inot in chronological order: the first part of the shooting did not necessarily coincide with the first part of the diptych (the scenes of the siege of La Rochelle having been filmed in the autumn of 2021, for example, will only appear in the second part). In March, the team took up residence in Troyes, notably in the Maison de l'outil et de la pensée ouvrière, one of the rooms of which was used as the basis for the set of D'Artagnan's room. The filming also took place the same month at the Hospices de Beaune27 as well as on the Valpendant estate in the commune of Presles and the Château de la Cordelière in Chaource. In April, the shooting moved to the castle of Farcheville and then to Moret-Loing-et-Orvanne. Planned to run until May 1, 2022, filming resumed for a few days after the Cannes Film Festival, and finally ended on June 3, 2022 at the Château de Farcheville. The shooting of the two films will have lasted 150 days. In their script, the writers make several references to historical facts and characters that do not belong to the era of the story, nor to Dumas'.

The script includes, among several characters that are not present in Dumas' novels, a black musketeer named Hannibal, inspired by Aniaba, the first black musketeer of France. However, we can only speak of inspiration since the action of The Three Musketeers takes place during the reign of Louis XIII, whereas Aniaba was in the company of Louis XIV, more than 60 years after the historical events described in the novel. The character of Hannibal is played by Ralph Amoussou. In addition, the first trailer for both films, revealed on December 5, 2022, features some lines inspired by famous historical quotes.

Synopsis:
From the Louvre to Buckingham Palace, from the underbelly of Paris to the siege of La Rochelle... In a Kingdom divided by the Wars of Religion and threatened with invasion by England, a handful of men and women will cross their swords and link their fate to that of France.

The Three Musketeers D’Artagnan
Directed by Martin Bourboulon
Produced by Dimitri Rassam
Written by Mathieu Delaporte, Alexandre de La Patellière
Starring François Civil, Vincent Cassel, Pio Marmaï, Romain Duris, Eva Green
Music by Guillaume Roussel
Cinematography : Célia Lafitedupont (D'Artagnan), Stan Collet (Milady)
Edited by Célia Lafitedupont (on D'Artagnan), Stan Collet (on Milady)
Production companies : Chapter 2, Pathé, M6 Films, Constantin Film, ZDF, DeAPlaneta, Umedia
Distributed by Pathé Distribution (France)
Release date : April 6 2023 (France), December13, 2023 (France) (Milady)
Running time : 121 minutes

Photos et video : Boris Colletier