Universal is looking for their next franchise and it looks like they went into their vault as Variety is reporting that the studio has decided to make a reboot film of the movie ‘The Mummy’ with the help of scribe Jon Spaihts.
Spaihts made the Variety’s “10 Screenwriters to Watch in 2012” list. He wrote the screenplay for ‘The Darkest Hour’ as well as co-wrote the Ridley Scott epic ‘Prometheus’ with Damon Lindelof. Maybe it’s the buzz from ‘Prometheus’ but Universal felt that he was the right scribe for the job to bring ‘The Mummy’ back to life.
Of the hire, Spaihts said, “I see it as the sort of opportunity I had with ‘Prometheus’: to go back to a franchise’s roots in dark, scary source material and simultaneously open it up to an epic scale we haven’t seen before.”
Most remember ‘The Mummy’ as the successful franchise starring Brendan Fraser who played globetrotting archaeologist, Richard “Rick” O’Connell, who fought against ancient demons. The first movie grossed $415 million worldwide with ‘The Mummy Returns’ earning $433 million and ‘The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor’ taking in $401 million. The movie spawned 2 sequels and the spin-off film ‘The Scorpion King’ (which earned $165 million worldwide) starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
Ironically Fraser’s ‘The Mummy’ movie was a reboot of its own of the classic 1932 Universal film of the same name starring Boris Karloff. From the sound of it, Spaihts is looking to bring back the horror in ‘The Mummy’ instead of the action film the recent franchise has become. Sean Daniel who produced all four prior films will also be producing on this reboot.
It may be some time before Spaihts actually works on this script as he is currently working on the screen adaptation of the novel ‘World War Robot’ as well as an untitled space adventure for producer Jerry Bruckheimer. As usual, once we know more about the development of this project, we’ll let you know!
So what are your thoughts on bringing this franchise back? Do you think that Spaights will continue with the same characters or go in a totally different direction?