It may not be a film that people are necessarily craving (even Jackie Chan, given his previous thoughts on his Hollywood outings), but it appears that MGM is pushing ahead with a second Shanghai Noon sequel, hiring Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre director Jared Hess to make Shanghai Dawn.
Chan and co-star Owen Wilson are making deals to return as Imperial Guard Chon Wang and laid back rascal Roy O'Bannon, who in the 2000 original, teamed up to save Lucy Liu's Chinese princess. In 2003 sequel Shanghai Knights, they reunited for an adventure in Victorian London, tracking down the people who murdered Wang's father.
As for what they'll be up to this time? Variety offers no details, though there was talk of an African setting back around the time of Knights, even as it seemed to put the brakes on a potential third film with its less successful box office haul. Original writers Miles Millar and Alfred Gough have provided the story (and were handed executive producer credits), with Theodore Riley and Aaron Buchsbaum writing the actual script.
Hess has not had much success of late; comedy Don Verdean made less than $32,000 at the box office on limited release and his most recent film, Masterminds, has been stuck in release limbo after the problems with distributor Relativity Media, finally taking aim at a US release on September 30, with no UK date set yet.