The Brenaissance – or should I say, the Brendan Fraser resurrection – has finally reached its final form. Years of fan begging & Brendan Fraser quietly dropping hints have finally paid off, with Universal Pictures confirming on Tuesday that The Mummy 4 is a go – & you guessed it, Rachel Weisz is coming back with him. This will be a first for the O’Connells since 2001, & more than a tad of a correction after that whole “Dark Universe” debacle back in 2017.
Universal has put the reins in the hands of Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett) – the guys behind those smash hit Scream (2022) & Abigail movies – & they know their way around crafting “legacy sequels” that are about as much about nostalgia as they are genuine horror. Tyler Gillett spilled the beans to Empire this week about David Coggeshall’s script & just called it as he sees it: sweeping, scary and fun – it’s a sweeping epic that we can bank on leaving the overused CGI-heavy caves of the third film behind for a genuine grand adventure like the 1999 original.
While we don’t know the plot details for the May 19, 2028 release, the industry is already buzzing about the “retcon “. The Hollywood Reporter is hinting that this film might just decide to ignore The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (the one where Weisz sat that one out) and go for a direct continuation of the original two films’ zany energy instead.
A Double Feature of the Mummy?
Now here is where things get really interesting [note – change from the original]. While we’re getting two very different takes on this legend over the next few years, we also have to get the return of the O’Connells in 2028 while Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (produced by Blumhouse) is going to hit theaters at the end of 2026 – & its going to be a whole different animal. One of those is a standalone horror flick that’s a bit of a Seven – meets – Poltergeist mash-up, & the other is the big screen adventure we’ve been dreaming of getting for the past two decades.
After all, it’s grossed over 1.8 billion at the box office – so it looks like Universal is putting a lot of stock in the fact that it’s the chemistry between its two leads that’s been the real treasure all along.
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