The film, titled Three Kingdoms, would be based on the classic Chinese novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is attributed to Luo Guanzhong who penned it in the 14th century. 'Romance' has been adapted into feature films numerous times, video games like the Dynasty Warriors series, and the massive Mandarin TV adaptation which I'm probably the only person in America who owns the entire run of on DVD. The story is a blend of historical fact, myth, and legend following the warring states of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu during the bloodiest time in Chinese history. Key warriors during that time, like Lu Bu, Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu (my Pop Vinyl figure of him is pictured above) were revered as gods, and military strategists like Zhuge Liang were believed to have control over the elements themselves.
Few details are available about how Legendary plans to adapt the material, or which particular time period they will focus on. Guanzhong's novel is a few thousand pages long so it's necessary to pluck out specific sections to cover. It will be interesting to see who is chosen to direct as it will say a lot for Legendary's approach. My suspicion is they'll go for the most bombastic retelling possible rather than aiming for historical accuracy.
