He’s famous for battling mythic Egyptian mummies on the big screen, but in real life Brendan Fraser has been fighting a different kind of curse – male pattern baldness.

The 38-year-old actor appears to have gone to rather extraordinary lengths to regain his once full head of tousled brown hair.

It was clear in 2003 that Brendan was thinning rapidly, but as he wrapped filming the third installment of the Mummy franchise in Shanghai yesterday, his long mane had made a rather miraculous comeback.

Perhaps it’s courtesy of a hair transplant or an old fashioned toupee, but whatever the case, he looked to be rather pleased with the result, giving fans a thumbs up as he left the studio.

Fraser is reprising his role as Rick O’Connell for The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, however his former co-star Rachel Weisz has not signed up for the third movie.

The latest installment moves to the Far East, with Rick unearthing the mummy of the first Emperor of Qin – a cursed shape-shifting entity.

Maria Bello will now play heroine Evelyn O’Connell, and up and coming Australian TV star Luke Ford will star as the couple’s son.

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Brendan Fraser has closed a rich deal to return in “The Mummy 3,” but Rachel Weisz is not coming back.

Rob Cohen will direct the pic, which is expected to begin production late in the summer. It will be set in China and will introduce Jet Li as a villain.

Universal is planning a summer 2008 release; franchise has earned more than $830 million worldwide. “The Mummy” bowed in 1999 and “The Mummy Returns” in 2001.

Weisz has won an Oscar and had a baby since the last installment, has dropped out of talks to reprise her role. She has several other projects in the offing, including “The Brothers Bloom” and Phillip Noyce’s Outback drama “Dirt Music,” set to begin shooting in August.

Script is by “Smallville” creators Miles Millar and Alfred Gough, who will do another pass that will factor in the absence of Weisz. Universal is holding up a greenlight pending a final rewrite, but a late summer start date is still expected.

Fraser, who previously toplined “George of the Jungle,” has proven a reliable franchise performer. Word has it he’s made a top-of-the-food-chain money deal for “The Mummy 3,” the first film in the series that won’t be directed by Stephen Sommers.

Fraser is also starring in two New Line-distributed films with tentpole aspirations: “Journey 3D,” an adaptation of Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth” that Walden Media and New Line are producing, and “Inkheart,” the Iain Softley-directed adaptation of the Cornelia Funke fantasy novel. New Line is eyeing 2008 releases for both pics, which could lead to a trio of event-sized Fraser films.

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