Universal Pictures has wanted to review The Mummy for years, trying and failing to do so with Tom Cruise a few years ago. But that’s not the kind of movie fans were eager for. They wanted the swashbuckling adventure movies with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz that were incredibly popular in the late ’90s and early 2000s. And now they’re finally going to get it with some surprising talent attached.
The Mummy franchise has been revived, with a fourth movie in the works that will reunite Fraser and Weisz. Not only that, but the film will be directed by the popular duo of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, better known as Radio Silence. The filmmakers broke out with the cult favorite horror Ready or Not, and also breathed fresh life into the Scream franchise in 2022 and 2023.
This would be a return of the Mummy adventure movies launched by director Stephen Sommers in 1999. Fraser and Weisz became A-list stars in part due to The Mummy, an Indiana Jones-style take on the classic horror that made $422M globally. The 2001 sequel, The Mummy Returns, was even better and made $435M. But Sommers and Weisz departed with the disappointing third movie, 2008’s The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, directed by Rob Cohen. It still made $405M despite poor reviews. Dwayne Johnson was featured in the prequel, The Scorpion King, released in 2002. The franchise was so popular it went on to spawn multiple video games and an animated spinoff series.
For other fans like me, this is great news. And it comes at a time when Fraser is hotter than he’s been in ages, so the time is perfect. He’ll be seen next in what I think is quietly an Oscar dark horse, Rental Family, which opens on November 21st. [Deadline]
