Horror fans and Fraser-heads alike, rejoice! According to a recent report from The Hollywood Reporter, Brendan Fraser will be returning for a fourth installment of the franchise that essentially launched his blockbuster career, The Mummy, and he will be joined by his co-star from the first two entries, Rachel Weisz.
Neither of the directors from the previous three films, Stephen Sommers and Rob Cohen, will be returning, and directing duties will instead be handled by filmmaking duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett– collectively known as Radio Silence – who have established themselves as heavyweights in the horror genre, having first gained major attention for their well-received 2019 feature, Ready or Not. They then solidified their status by successfully reinvigorating the Scream franchise, directing the fifth and sixth entries, which is also likely why they have been chosen to now do something similar with The Mummy.
The Mummy franchise, as a whole, has something of a complicated history. It goes all the way back to the 1932 pre-Code horror The Mummy, which featured the legendary Borsi Karloff in the titular role. This, and the sequels that followed, formed the mummy archetype in cinema we know today. The franchise was then rebooted for the first time in Britain, producing four films between 1959 and 1971, with the first entry even featuring legendary actors Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.
Come 1999, the franchise was rebooted once again with Fraser and Weisz, followed by The Mummy Returns (2001) and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), and while there were reportedly plans for up to three sequels, Universal Pictures ultimately decided to reboot the franchise yet again, resulting in 2017’s The Mummy.
This picture was meant to be Universal’s Iron Man, in the sense that it was intended to kickstart what they called the “Dark Universe”, a shared universe centering on the gallery of Universal Monsters, and they even preemptively cast Javier Bardem as Frankenstein’s Monster and Johnny Depp as the Invisible Man. However, despite starring Tom Cruise, The Mummy was a monumental failure both critically and commercially, collapsing the “Dark Universe” before it ever truly began.
And if all that wasn’t enough, even as the news of the latest sequel rolls in, there is yet another adaptation in production, also called The Mummy, that is written and directed by Irish director Lee Cronin, best known for his impressive work on Evil Dead Rise.
Regardless, Universal clearly believes that nostalgia is what audiences crave most, though I’m sure the interest of Oscar winners Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz also helped with the decision. Fraser has been particularly vocal in recent years about returning to the franchise, especially after his lauded comeback to the forefront of Hollywood with The Whale, telling Variety in 2022, “I don’t know how it would work…. But I’d be open to it, if someone came up with the right conceit.” He even stated why he believed the Tom Cruise-led 2017 version of the film didn’t work, explaining, “It was too much of a straight-ahead horror movie. ‘The Mummy’ should be a thrill ride, but not terrifying and scary.”
As for how they will approach a sequel featuring an older Fraser and Weisz remains to be seen, especially considering that the former cannot perform the types of stunts he did all those years ago, not just because he is now in his 50’s, but also because he did a great deal of damage to his body filming the original trilogy.
What we do know, though, is that the script, written by David Coggeshall, will use a similar approach to Terminator: Dark Fate, in that this entry will reportedly disregard the third film, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. This is a wise choice given that Weisz chose not to return at the time and was replaced by Maria Bello, not to mention Rick and Evelyn’s son, Alex, jarringly went from 8 years old in 2001’s The Mummy Returns to 21 years old in its 2008 sequel. He was played by a Canadian-born Australian actor, who is only 13 years younger than Fraser, and boy, could you tell!