Universal just dragged The Mummy out of the sand again, and this time it’s bringing the right people with it. Not Tom Cruise. But Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz have closed deals to return as Rick O’Connell and Evelyn O’Connell, which means the franchise isn’t doing a reboot. It’s going back to the characters you actually remember. The new sequel hits theaters on May 19, 2028, with Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett directing and David Coggeshall handling the screenplay.
Plot details are still being locked in a tomb somewhere, but the direction is clear. This is a sequel, not a restart, and sources say it will disregard the events of 2008’s The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and everything else that’s called itself The Mummy since.
It makes sense when you look at the numbers and the history. The 1999 film, written and directed by Stephen Sommers, remade the 1932 classic and still pulled in $422.5 million worldwide. Mixed reviews didn’t stop people from showing up. The Mummy Returns followed in 2001 and also crossed $400 million worldwide. Then Tomb of the Dragon Emperor showed up with a $175 million budget and barely made a profit. The franchise went quiet after that, apart from the 2017 Tom Cruise reboot that tried to launch a shared universe called The Dark Universe and crashed hard.
Radio Silence now gets the keys. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett come from a horror-first background: Ready or Not, Scream (2022), Scream VI, and 2024’s Abigail. They’ve already wrapped a Ready or Not sequel, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, which hits theaters March 20, and they’re attached to an Art Bell biopic. The Mummy 4 will easily be their biggest budget swing yet.
Gillett explained why they said yes: “Having stepped into Scream, our radar for jumping into another franchise is that it has to feel special,” he tells Empire. He also says Coggeshall’s script “really does that. It is very beautiful and sweeping and scary and fun.” That’s the exact combo the 1999 movie sold so well: Indiana Jones-style adventure, romance, and touches of horror, set in a period world where one bad decision wakes up something you can’t put back.
Fraser’s timing is perfect, too. He’s deep into a comeback run after winning an Oscar for The Whale, showing up briefly in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, and starring in Hikari’s fall-fest hit Rental Family. And he’s been ready for this for a while. “The one I wanted to make is forthcoming,” Fraser said. “I’ve been waiting 20 years for this call. Sometimes it was loud, sometimes it was a faint telegraph. Now? It’s time to give the fans what they want.”
RELATED: What Went Wrong With Scorpion King’s CGI? VFX Supervisor Explains
