by Andy Gibbons

The 3D revolution is continuing at pace with news that two more projects have joined the very long list of movies coming our way in three dimensions.

We found out recently that Paul W. S. Anderson is going to be swashing his buckle with an update of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers however now we’ve have some casting to think about. Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief star Logan Lerman is to play the ambitious D’Artagnan (which I guess rules him out as Peter Parker in the Spider-Man reboot) while the British trio of Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans and Matthew Macfadyen will play his brothers-in-arms Porthos, Athos and Aramis. But what has me really excited is the casting of Inglorious Basterds head Nazi hunter Christoph Waltz (below) as the evil Cardinal Richelieu. If you thought Tim Curry was too hammy as the cunning clergyman in Disney’s 1993 take on the story, I expect Waltz to be chilling and thrilling in equal measure. Casino Royale’s Mads Mikkelsen has been named as the Cardinal’s right hand man Rochefort and Anderson has cast his wife Milla Jovovich as Milady de Winter.

Now I’ve never been a massive fan of Paul W. S. Anderson’s movies – I’ve often thought that he simply panders to the lowest common denominator without giving any significant thought to creativity or characterisation despite a promising start to his career with Shopping and Event Horizon – but the cast he’s pulled together for The Three Musketeers has me genuinely excited. My concern though is that Paul will employ the 3D at his disposal as just another gimmick with lots of sabres pointing out of the screen rather than using it as an aid to the story–telling.

And it’s also been revealed that the big screen return of 2000 A.D. favourite Judge Dredd is also going to be a 3D adventure. The character didn’t have the most auspicious of starts back in 1995 when Sly Stallone bought justice to the streets of Mega City One but with Brit director Pete Travis behind the camera and Andrew Macdonald and Alex Garland producing and writing, this stands a better than average chance of being watchable. Let’s just hope they get the all important casting right – who would you want playing Joe Dredd?