Trivia / The Three Musketeers (2023)

• California Doubling:
  • The siege of La Rochelle (which is situated on the French Atlantic coast in the département of Charentes Maritimes) was filmed in Saint-Malo (in Brittany, département of Côtes d'Armor), on the Channel coast. Saint-Malo has enough 17th century fortifications and buildings left (or rather, rebuilt identically after the devastations caused by the Allied air raids of World War II) while modern La Rochelle doesn't (though even some of these fortifications are Anachronism Stew, being built under Louis XIV).
  • Ditto with the castle Fort-la-Latte, which is also in Brittany (not far from Saint-Malo) and nowhere near La Rochelle.
  • The castle of Luçon (where the Cardinal Richelieu was bishop once, in Vendée, on the Atlantic coast) is actually the castle of Chantilly, in Oise (north of Paris).
• Dawson Casting:
  • As is often the case, D'Artagnan is eighteen at the start of the story and is played by someone in his late 20s/early 30s. Here, François Civil was 30-31.
  • Anne of Austria and Louis XIII were 26 at the time the story is set. They're played by Vicky Krieps and Louis Garrel, who were both 38-39 at the time of the shooting.
  • Éric Ruf is 10 years older than the Cardinal Richelieu was in 1627.
  • A gravestone in Part II establishes that Milady was 28 years old at the time of her supposed death in 1620, making her 35 in 1627. Eva Green was 41-42 at the time of shooting.
• Dueling Works: British film company Signature Entertainment released their own version of the story digitally and on DVD in March 2023. It has a much smaller budget and the cast includes James Cosmo as the Cardinal Richelieu.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Anne of Austria, a Spanish princess who became queen of France, is played by Vicky Krieps, who hails from Luxembourg.
  • The obviously French Gaston de France is played by the Belgian Julien Frison.
• Follow the Leader: The films and other planned installments are an attempt at a Hollywood-style franchise building that's never really been tried in France before. Most notably, the big budget theatrical installments and planned big budget TV series installments emulate what Disney has done with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars.
• Hey, It's That Place!: Filming locations that can feel familiar to (at least French) moviegoers include:
  • For both parts, the castle of Chantilly in the département of Oise, which was used for many productions, including The Longest Day, the James Bond film A View to a Kill, Valmont, Ridicule, Beaumarchais, Vidocq, Arsène Lupin (2004) (also starring Romain Duris), Marie Antoinette (2006) and The Gray Man.
  • For Part II, there's the Fort la Latte castle in Brittany, which was used for 1958's The Vikings and, of all things, the 1961 Three Musketeers diptych with Gérard Barray and Mylène Demongeot.
• Inspiration for the Work: Director and co-writer Martin Bourboulon has said he took inspiration from Cyrano de Bergerac, Indiana Jones, La Reine Margot, Elephant and The Duellists.
• The Other Marty: For an unspecified reason, Oliver Jackson-Cohen was replaced by Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as the Duke of Buckingham after filming began.
• Production Posse: The films are a new collaboration between actor Romain Duris and director Martin Bourboulon after Eiffel.
• Real-Life Relative: Pio Marmaï (Porthos) and Charlotte Ranson (Isabelle de Valcour) are in a relationship since 2019.
• Similarly Named Works:
  • Part I is titled D'Artagnan, like the French title of 2001's The Musketeer.
  • Part II is titled Milady, like the 2004 TV film (a Perspective Flip of the story with the titular character as a Villain Protagonist). That one had Richelieu's actor Eric Ruf as Aramis.
• Those Two Actors:
  • Vincent Cassel and Eva Green starred in the Apple TV+ series Liaison, which premiered a few weeks before Part I of The Three Musketeers.
  • It's the second and third films in which Éric Ruf and Louis Garrel appear after An Officer and a Spy.
  • It reunited Garrel with Green 20 years after The Dreamers.
  • It also reunited Green with Romain Duris after 2004's Arsène Lupin.

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