Back in April, we posted the wild rumor that Alex Pettyfer (the star of Stormbreaker) was set for the ‘kid role’ in The Mummy 3: The Curse of the Dragon. Soon after I reported this it appeared to be false when Luke Ford was officially cast as Brendan Fraser’s now much older son.
However it turns out Pettyfer will be in the Mummy 3, though he probably won’t be playing the son (unless it’s a flashback to a younger age?).
Bloody Disgusting also report that John Hannah will be reprising his role as Jonathan Carnahan, the brother of Eve Carnahan who in this film will be played by Maria Bello after Rachel Weisz saw sense and decided not do the project. Will Hannah’s chemistry with Bello be as interesting as the one he had with Weisz, because for some reason those two clicked really well in the previous movies and it really added to the movie’s overall humor.
Also cast in the film are Anthony Wong from The Matrix sequels (who is likely to be a villain) and Isabelle Leong.
Seen as though I’ve told you virtually the whole cast at this point, I might as well remind you that Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh are also in the flick, as the two main bad guys.
Can’t say I have any hope for this one. Rob Cohen is a truly awful choice to direct this picture and the ‘Chinese Mummy Ninja’s’ plot sounds dreadful as does the replacing of Rachel Weisz with Maria Bello. The best chance this flick had was if they went back to the elements that made the first movie so good and just improve on what didn’t work but from the looks of things this movie is going to turn out more like Mortal Kombat.
Production has now begun on The Mummy 3 which is set for release on July 11th 2008.
5 Comments
Soon as I heard Stephen Sommers wasn’t involved I decided to skip this one. Say what you want about Sommers, he’s a damned good writer, and a fantastic director. And as far as “improving on what didn’t work,” I don’t really know what that could be. I felt that everything worked about both Mummy movies. Sommers even managed to make the origin story exciting and not feel like a plodding potboiler meant to set up an endless string of sequels.
Mummy 3 is already shaping up to be a fiasco. There’s no way Cohen can tell a coherent story. None of his stuff is fun. It’s usually his attempt at hardcore serious storytelling that is misdirected and comes off as a jumbled mess.
Instead of this film being about the power and mysticicm of the Far East, like the first two were about the Middle East, instead I can see now that Cohen will show us all how brilliant he is by having it be a clumsy chop-socky kung-fu flick. Of course there will be an army of marching Ming Dynasty stuatues, (that’ll go over as well as they did in Tomb Raider) and probably a stupid sidekick for Brendan and his son to use as comic-relief.
And to cast Jet Li as the villain? Rob Cohen is almost as bad at casting as Michael Bay.
With the whole Chinese mummies trip, there’s plenty of scope for this film to go into interesting mystical, spiritual dimensions. As JaySmack says though, it could just end up being empty action fodder.
Plus no Racheal Weisz, and Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh as baddies? I’m interested, but definitely apprehensive.
Hey I don’t mind Stephen Sommers, especially the look and direction of his films just sometimes the lack of story in his flicks and his decision to go the immature direction is a little annoying.
I would take him over Rob Cohen any day of the week.
James–
I know there’s plenty of “potential” with this approach to the francise, but it’s in the hands of a director who has failed to produce even one work of quality. Nothing Cohen has done has been good. It would be one thing if Cohen had only done one or tow flicks (Like len Wiseman has) but Cohen’s been making movies for nearly fifteen years, and they’ve all been bad. And the script doesn’t matter. You could give him the screenplay for Lawrence of Arabia and he’d still screw it up. And there is no “could end up being empty action fodder,” it WILL end up being that because in Cohen’s mind he’ll be “taking it to the next level.” Only his idea of the next level is less story and more explosions and gunplay.
How do you take a charismatic, actress of depth like Rachel Weisz and replace her with an actress who can barely speak the Emglish language?
This seems to me to be a dumbass choice motivated by a director who’s “always wanted to work with her.” Naomi Watts or Eva Green would have been my choices. But Maria Bello? Dumb!
Anyone who thinks this movie hasn’t gone seriously off the rails is on crack!
Agreed.. this movie is heading towards disaster.
However, it’s Rachel Weisz who turned down the movie not that Cohen didn’t want her. And I can guarantee he would take Eva Green or Naomi Watts if they ever expressed a desire to be in this thing (which they never would have because they have more sense).
Maria Bello is probably the only actress in Hollywood who decided the cash was more important than the role, and she grabbed the opportunity as soon as it came available.
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[...] ran) is out; Maria Bello is in as Brendan Fraser’s ladylove for the third Mummy movie, rather clumsily titled The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Here’s some more casting news for the flick, courtesy [...]