Jackie Chan is the kind of actor who can be paired up with just about anybody and the film be a hit. Chris Tucker? You get a trio of top-grossing Rush Hour movies. Jaden Smith? The Karate Kid remake busts $300M. On the lower end of the scale were his team-ups with Owen Wilson, the Western buddy comedies Shanghai Noon and less well-liked sequel, Shanghai Knights. Twelve years have passed Chan and Wilson last saddled up, but now they're ready to ride again.
According to The Tracking Board, the duo are set to reunite for Shanghai Dawn, reprising their roles as Chon Wang (a play on "John Wayne") and Roy O'Bannon. Wilson has pretty much played a version of the same character in all three Night at the Museum movies, so it should be easy to slide back into the cowboy role. Talk of a third film has been around for more than a decade but never came together. For some reason MGM thinks now is the time.
Is there an audience sitting around waiting for this particular sequel, though? The first two movies weren't terrible expensive but they couldn't crack $100M, and nobody thinks of them as cult classics or anything like that. Nobody really thinks of them at all. So this is a curious move and I wouldn't be surprised if cooler heads prevail once writers are hired and a story needs to take shape.
