There are some franchises that development hell will end up claiming forever, regardless of how hard the key creative minds try to drag it out. Following on from a surprisingly acclaimed original, 2003’s Shanghai Knights ended up being the sequel to signal the death knell for a property that definitely had the potential for more.
Teaming up Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan for a blockbuster action comedy set in the Old West was a fantastic concept, and one that critics and crowds responded to in kind after opening chapter Shanghai Noon did a solid turn at the box office and won hugely enthusiastic reviews.
Naturally, the follow-up didn’t take much time to materialize, but the law of diminishing returns set in very quickly. Second time out, Chon Wang and Roy O’Bannon head across the pond to London in order to avenge the murder of the former’s estranged father, only to discover that there’s even more familial shenanigans at play than they’d anticipated.
Knights made less money and scored worse reviews than Noon, but Shanghai Dawn was nonetheless announced to be in the works immediately afterwards, with the studio remaining committed to the project right up until 2016. Sadly, it wasn’t to be, and you’d imagine that ship has long since sailed by now.
Either way, it’s Shanghai Knights that’s been enjoying an uptick in streaming popularity, with FlixPatrol naming it as one of the most-watched movies on ViaPlay this week. One more wouldn’t have gone amiss, but as it stands, it’ll remain a duology as opposed to a trilogy.
Published: Jul 11, 2023 02:07 am