Rob Cohen, director of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, has just updated his blog with first character images from the third installment in the Mummy franchise.
Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) looks pretty much the same, although he's intended to be a good fifteen years older than he was in the previous film. But his wife Evelyn has made a bit of a transformation. She's got from being somewhat Rachel Weisz shaped to a whole lot Maria Bello shaped. The picture seems to show her reading from a book called The Mummy (you can see half the cover on a lecturn and the other half on a blown up cover behind her). Is she now writing of her adventures in digging up bandaged people?
The third picture shows Michelle Yeoh and Chinese star Isabella Leong as mother and daughter Zijuan and Lin, who have ties to the new mummy of this movie, Emperor Qin (Jet Li). Speaking of Li, Cohen reports on his blog that Li has started shooting his role in the film. He says:
"Jet Li is finally has joined us in Montreal and the production has palpably kicked up into a higher gear. As I shoot our "trekking through the Himalayas" sequence where our heroes are searching for Shangri-la, I am madly refining the Emperor/Rick O'Connell fight with stunt co-ordinators Ku Huen Chzu (known to everyone as Dede) and Mark Southworth. It's a real contrast in styles, Brendan's and Jet's, highly balletic, powerful Wushu vs. the brutal directness of Krav Maga plus magic and shape-shifting creatures leading to the the climax aided by Luke Ford and the clash of armies overhead. I have seven days to shoot it so this will be my last entry until China. We wrap here next Thursday; then I'm off to L.A. for less than twenty-four (obstetrician and VFX meetings with D.D. and R&H) then straight to Beijing and Tian Mo, the desert three hours north of the capitol."
You can read the full blog here.