The Scorpion King 3: Battle For Redemption

'The Scorpion King' series is an interesting one. It aims to be good, fun, sword and sorcery adventure stories calling out characters like Conan and Kull, but, unlike a classic character like Conan, is often kept from moving into too adult of territory by an emphasis on being popcorn entertainment.
The first was a spin off of 'The Mummy Returns' the first sequel to the remake of 'The Mummy', which had the character attempt to take over the world and ultimately cursed by Anubis to live as a Scorpion monster. It aimed to explore the conqueror now in this movie an assassin and the last of his kind. It went through rewrites and edits ultimately becoming something other than what was intended. With the film shifted overall towards a lighter style and tone. It had more than a few awkward moments and weak scenes trying to justify the steps before the status quo already seen in 'The Mummy Returns'. I still think an alternate cut exists that would of worked out most of the problems the movie had, but we'll likely never see it. Which is unfortunate because a look at some of the deleted scenes gives you a glimpse of material that works so much better than what was in the final product. Problems aside however, the movie was still a fun enough little flick.
The second movie; 'The Scorpion King 2: Rise Of A Warrior' was a prequel featuring the main character as a young member of a royal guard out to avenge the murder of his father by the evil king. The title role was naturally recast with a younger actor to accommodate both the shift in timeline and the absence of Dwayne Johnson. It featured quite a number of elements with scorpion in the name seemingly to remind you that "this is the guy who becomes The Scorpion King", not the least of which was a giant, invisible, scorpion in the films climax. And overall had a greater emphasis on magic. While it wasn't nearly as good as the first, and suffered from the incredibly reduced budget, it was decent enough.
And now we have the third, the trailer for which is above. Just from this trailer it looks like a step above the second film. Once again the main character is recast, but now older as indicated by the impressive beard. And the setting has been changed to what appears to be Thailand. Ron Perlman and Billy Zane play brothers, with Perlman being the King and Zane scheming to take the throne. Here's the official synopsis;

'Since his triumphant rise to power in the original blockbuster The Scorpion King, Mathayus’ kingdom has fallen and he’s lost his queen to plague. Now an assassin for hire, he must defend a kingdom from an evil tyrant and his ghost warriors for the chance to regain the power and glory he once knew. Starring Ron Perlman (Hellboy) and Billy Zane (Titanic), and featuring 6-time WWE champion Dave Bautista and UFC star Kimbo Slice, The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption takes The Mummy phenomenon to an all-new level of epic action and non-stop adventure!'

Showing the trailer to my little sister, who enjoys the first film but hates the second, she said it looked "pretty cool". I'll give it a look when I get a chance, it comes out on DVD/Blu-ray January 10th. Maybe if things work out we'll see a fourth and fifth in the franchise. Who knows where those will go.