Perhaps I’ll lose some Film Twitter cred, but I also don’t care, so here goes: “Shanghai Noon” and (in particular) “Shanghai Knights” are total guilty pleasures for me. Say what you will, but I think the pairing and chemistry of Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson works quite well in those movies, and have a good amount of popcorn charm. So a third movie? Well, I’m in.
READ MORE: Jackie Chan Will Receive An Honorary Oscar At The 2016 Governors Awards
It’s been thirteen years since “Shanghai Knights,” but both Chan and Wilson will be back and getting into trouble in “Shanghai Dawn” (naturally). This time around, it’ll be Jared Hess (“Napoleon Dynamite“) directing the adventure, marking his second outing with Wilson, who he helmed in the upcoming (and frequently delayed) “Masterminds.” The film will have a story from Miles Millar and Alfred Gough, who were involved with both ‘Noon’ and ‘Knights,’ and a script from Theodore Riley and Aaron Buchsbaum. As for the story? It’s under wraps.
Of course the big question is why another ‘Shanghai’ movie over a decade later, and the easy answer is likely China. While Chan might not carry the same box office weight in the U.S. as he did in his prime, the actor is still a huge draw in China, where last month “Skiptrace” — the otherwise kinda cruddy buddy movie with Johnny Knoxville — opened to $60 million in the country, while it barely made a ripple here. So if ‘Dawn’ is set in China, I will not be shocked.
No word yet on when production on this might begin, but I’d imagine that once negotiations with Chan and Wilson are done, MGM aren’t going to wait too long to get this moving. [THR]