Yep, in a very unexpected announcement Universal have announced to reboot The Mummy franchise. Of all the reboots and remakes out there and on the way I would not have picked this out. Then I went and had a look at the numbers. The Mummy trilogy was budgeted at around $250 Million (for all three) and made back about $1.25 Billion.
That's good value for any studio head. Alongside that and brand familiarity (the first Mummy came out thirteen years ago and a whole generation fo kids have grown up knowing about it) and a good marketing campaign, then all you need is the hot new male lead and girl who girls want to be and you have a new franchise cash register in your pocket.
All that is pretty cynical of me I know. I like Brendan Fraser and thought, for all their faults the first two Mummy films were good solid fun and had the third stood up and sang I would have watcjed yet more. But for me they missed a trick straight off the bat. Instead of going from The Mummy to The Mummy Returns, they should have switched it to Rick OConnell and the....Insert movie plot subtitle here. Do that and you instantly make the transition from a series rooted in yet more Mummy antics to one where any storyline is possible based around a solid groups of charming characters that people like going to see in family action movies. Sound familiar? Well think Indiana Jones's first outing was called Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark? Nope, just Raiders of the Lost Ark. They missed a golden opporutnity to branch out creatively.
Still, I kinda hope they do well and make the Mummy movies fun, even though they are bound to try and join the current trend of making all stories as dark as possible (within a PG 13 rating of course). And who knows, we might even get a Fraser cameo.