Writing duo Alfred Gough and Miles Millar may now be known for the likes of the hit Netflix series Wednesday and the long-awaited horror comedy sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, but the pair once crafted a masterful blend of Western and action in 2000’s Shanghai Noon. Starring martial arts icon Jackie Chan and Wedding Crashers star Owen Wilson, the movie expertly combines thrilling action, comedy, martial arts, and cowboys, with a sequel, Shanghai Knights, released in 2003. Sadly, despite the popularity of the Shanghai movies, a third movie never materialized, and Gough has now revealed why. It was Jackie Chan’s fault.
“We came very close. Oh my gosh, COVID always makes my timeline wonky. I think it was like 2017, 2018, we had a script and Jackie [Chan] and Owen [Wilson] had verbally kind of committed. Then, at a certain point, Jackie just decided he didn’t want to do it. That’s all I really know. There was a moment probably six or seven years ago where it looked like it was starting to come together. We weren’t writing it, we were working with some younger writers, but we helped break the story, and they were writing it. So, that’s where we are.”
The first movie, directed by Tom Dey, finds Chan’s Chinese Imperial guard Chon Wang joining forces with the American bandit Roy O’Bannon in a classic case of a mismatched pair being forced to work together. The sequel, directed David Dobkin, follows the duo to London, England. While Shanghai Knights was not as well-received critically as its predecessor, it performed admirably at the box office, with a third movie, Shanghai Dawn, announced in 2015.
While this unfortunately never came to pass, Gough has now revealed what Shanghai Dawn would have been about…
Shanghai Dawn Would Have Taken the Action to Hollywood
Continuing his conversation with Collider, Gough revealed that Shanghai Dawn would have found Jackie Chan’s Chon Wang becoming an actor and heading to Hollywood, where he has found huge success. Having been apart from his former partner, Roy O’Bannon for some time, the pair are drawn together again after the hapless cowboy finds himself at the mercy of Mexican revolutionaries. As Gough explains it…
“I think the story was the Jackie character, was now working in silent movies — it was kind of the Tom Mix era. That’s where they had gotten to. Then Owen was down in Mexico, and I think it was something about him being with revolutionaries, and Jackie had to go save him. I honestly don’t remember, but I do remember it was that kind of era, the early silent movie era of Hollywood, which we thought was a lot of fun.”
While they may never join forces again, Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson are still going strong. The latter will next lead the upcoming Apple TV+ sports comedy series Rambler & the Birdie Machine, while the former can currently be seen starring as a fictionalized version of himself in Panda Plan while gearing up to join Cobra Kai star Ralph Macchio in a new Karate Kid movie.