A new report suggests that Universal has a fourth film in The Mummy series planned, with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz reprising their roles.
Here’s an interesting story to emerge from the rumour mill this morning. Reporter Daniel Rictman has claimed that a fourth film in The Mummy series is being developed at Universal. The project will reportedly see both Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz return to reprise their roles from the original trilogy which concluded with The Mummy –Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor in 2008.
Weiz didn’t feature in that instalment – as we covered in this look at why a fourth film never happened – and she wasn’t apparently satisfied with the script. However, Richtman (via World Of Reel) claims that both she and Fraser are on board for this next instalment, which would bring back a series that gave audiences some brilliant moments and launched the career of one Dwayne Johnson.
Unlike the Tom Cruise-headlined 2017 take on The Mummy (which was of course supposed to start an interconnected cinematic universe that would link all of Universal’s monster characters), the earlier films continue to be fondly remembered. Well, perhaps not the last one so much (although it did feature Jet Li), but even then, The Mummy –Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor did okay commercially, bringing in $400m.
Read more: The lost Brendan Fraser-headlined Mummy movie
That’s about the same dollar amount as Cruise’s version, but bear in mind this was the third film in the series – not a greatly-hyped franchise starter as Cruise’s 2017 film was. You’re also adjusting for around a decade of inflation too. All of which is to say that this could be a smart move on the part of Universal. There may well be an audience out there that want to see more stories featuring these characters.
What happens next is anybody’s guess, but perhaps we’ll see the studio follow the tried and tested formula of securing a couple of popular young actors to bring in a younger audience to refresh the series. Certainly, given the headlines being generated by the early summer season’s dipping box office fortunes, we can see studios dipping back into tried and tested franchises to see what could be refreshed.
We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
