All for one and one for BBC One, and co-produced by BBC America, apparently. It looks like Alexandre Dumas' classic story The Three Musketeers is set to get the TV treatment, with BBC America co-producing the BBC One production The Musketeers.
BBC America made the announcement today, stating that they were set to co-produce BBC One's The Musketeers, a drama written by Adrian Hodges (My Week with Marilyn), inspired by Dumas' classic story. It'll consist of ten hour-long episodes, which are set to run in 2014.
The Musketeers is a fresh and contemporary take on the beloved story and characters created by Dumas. It tells the story of a band of brothers, highly trained soldiers who are assigned to protect King and country. Courageous, impulsive, ready to fight any battle, if the cause is just. The series shares Dumas’ original 17th century setting and will feature a fresh story each week across its 10 x 60-minute run set for 2014.
There's definite potential in a small screen series based on (or inspired by) Dumas' story, which many are familiar with, either from reading the book or seeing one of numerous film adaptations, the most recent of which was Paul W.S. Anderson's 2011 feature, which had Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson and Luke Evans as Athos, Porthos and Araamis respectively.
The phrase "inspired by" makes me think we'll be seeing Hodges take some creative license with regards to the adaptation, but that's fine. It should be very interesting to see how they adapt the story for a drama series. And with BBC America involved in the production, it seems like we stand a good chance of getting a look at the series Stateside. With a 2014 target for its premiere, we'll have a while to wait, but it'll be interesting to see who they bring in to play the leads.
