Action star Donnie Yen‘s 2014 live-action/CG-hybrid fantasy actioner, The Monkey King, was a huge commercial success earlier this year, breaking first day sales records in addition to becoming the highest-grossing film on Lunar New Year in Chinese movie history to name a few. Since then, production company Filmko announced a sequel that would continue the adventures of the title charactet based on work of late author Wu Cheng’en. However, details on the development of the sequel remain to be seen while its production moves forward this month.
For this, producers Michael Wehrhahn and Mark Gus Scott of Global Star Productions, who were on hand this past weekend at the Urban Action Showcase and Expo in New York to promote The Monkey King franchise, shared a little bit about the current progress of the sequel in an interview with The Action Elite on Sunday. “Pre-production has started; actually we’re just out of development and into pre-production, however it’s going to take a little bit of time because there’s as many special effects in that as there are in this one.” says Wehrhahn. “It’s going to be a little bit more developed; the first Monkey King when it was shot had a lot of special effects to be done. On set if we didn’t have time to finish a scene we’d say “let’s just do it CGI”. So what wound up happening on Part 1 is The Monkey King himself had to have every scene in the film have a CGI tale added to his costume. That’s 100% of the movie! So it was a great endeavour but we got it complete obviously but we’re a little bit more prepared for Part 2 so hopefully we won’t take that long. I’m estimating that we’ll probably have it wrapped up within the next two years.”
As of last year, Yen made it quite clear that he had no intention returning sequel following the rigorous demands of the first, enduring the hours of make up and discomfort that came with playing the legendary Asian folk hero. Wehrhahn reflected on this briefly during the interview saying, “…he was on wires for maybe 16 hours each day, not to mention the rest of the day where he’s sitting getting make up put on. I think it was 6 and a half hours of make up every day. The dedication that Donnie put into this was like nothing I’d ever seen before and I’ve nothing but respect for the man.” Aside from this, Yen has also priortized a number of films within the past several years that would ultimately leave no room for him to return, including director Derek Kwok’s Dragon City and Yen’s forthcoming Hollywood debut, Noodle Man. As such, with a trilogy in store, it was only a matter of time before rumors would start swirling online regarding would replace him, and while it has not yet been confirmed, The Monkey King co-star Aaron Kwok‘s social media appear to make him the likely front runner after starring in the first opposite Yen as the Bull Demon King. Otherwise, an official announcement is still pending.
In the meantime, U.S. audiences can expect its own version, The Monkey King: The Legend Begins while the producers go on the road next year with a major merchandising push through Comic-Con venues, Wizard World and networking events, and much more. “February it’s all gonna start!”, exclaimed Scott. “The release date will coincide with the Chinese New Year; the film will be in theatres in America, followed by Video On Demand, HBO, Cinemax, Blu-ray and DVD release. We also have a video game in the works from Kung-fu Factory…and we’ll be working together making a Monkey King iOS platform game which will be downloadable right to your iPhone or Android! It’s gonna take the world by storm.”
Wehrhahn added, “We also have 6 comic books coming out that will eventually be combined into a graphic novel. There’s also a social network that’s going up online and it’s interesting to see where that’s going to go because there’s a lot of Monkey King Fans out there who have just been evading our Facebook. With the release of this movie in China, we were watching the servers for the website and it got over 3 million hits on its opening weekend. This is such a huge endeavour for a new website that we’d literally just put up; it was mass marketed obviously but it’s quite interesting.”
February 15 and 18, 2015 are the expected dates next year for The Monkey King: The Legend Begins for its American release, so mark your calendars and stay tuned for more info, and if you missed last year’s international teaser, check it out below.
