In the world of movies, things don’t need to make logical sense. We have time travelers, people that can shoot fireballs, and folks hell-bent on paranoia and the number 23. The Mummy series starring Brendan Fraser wasn’t exactly a critical success, but it did just fine for itself at the box office thanks to some rather nifty special effects and a handful of interesting action sequences. The latest news coming out of Hollywood is that they’re working on yet another sequel to the Egypt-based action flick, except instead of employing Brendan Fraser and The Rock, they’ve gone quite a bit further east and elicited the services of Jet Li.
According to Ain’t It Cool, Jet Li is going to play a Chinese mummy of some kind, presumably with some slow-motion kung-fu skills. The story takes place after the son of Brendan Fraser’s character has grown up, fought in World War II, and “taken to the “family business” of Archeology and necro-ass-kickery.”
Now, I’m all for having more Asian actors in mainstream roles, but this has got to be one of the strangest incidents of Asian fusion I have encountered since seeing chow mein being sold as gourmet grub in Las Vegas. What’s next? Jackie Chan playing a Greek warlord in 300, Part II?
In completely unrelated news, Tom Cruise has inked a deal to work with Bryan Singer on an unnamed thriller movie that will tell a rather interesting tale: an assassination attempt on one Adolf Hitler. Scientology and Nazi Germany… Anyways, what’s more interesting about this particular story is that it is the first time that Singer and Christopher McQuarrie (who co-wrote the Hitler script with Nathan Alexander) have worked together since the legendary The Usual Suspects.
Jet Li? I thought he said Fearless was his last movie!
Fearless was his last “Grand Kung Fu” movie not his last movie.
Does that mean he won’t be doing kung fu in this movie? Or at least not a lot?
I can’t see Jet Li in a passive role :S
I am waiting for the day when we can see an Japanese-RedIndians or some English Pyramids they will make that too). For the film industry sense means non-sense. Look at 300 it is like each of the spartans are killing almost a thousnd guys a day.. What does all these mean – are the viewers monkeys or something..?
It seems that whenever I see a “sequel” that has entirely new actors, the result is not too good. Many sequels are just not the same due to a difference in writing, direction, etc.; but we at least like them because we are familiar with and like the characters from the original. I think that’s where sequels that have different characters than the first fail. Hopefully this one manages to avoid that.