‘Underworld’ and ‘Total Recall’ Director Len Wiseman to Reboot ‘The Mummy’?

I don’t think film fans in general are against reboots as a whole, but most are against reboots of films that aren’t that old or simply don’t have any reason to be rebooted.  While Universal’s Mummy franchise has produced a series of fine popcorn flicks (albeit pale imitations of Indiana Jones), it hasn’t been that long since the last entry in the series, 2008’s The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (not counting the spin-off Scorpion King series, which saw Scorpion King 3 released this year).  Yet Deadline reveals that Universal is hoping to reboot the franchise in the hopes of finally jump-starting the revival of the Universal Monsters series after two previous failures at reviving the brand (2004’s Van Helsing and 2010’s The Wolfman), and is already set for a summer 2014 release.

To reboot the franchise Universal has picked Len Wiseman, whose biggest success was creating the horror/adventure Underworld series (he also directed the first two entries in the series).  He also the directed the decent Live Free or Die Hard, but recently directed a bomb — both critically and commercially — in the remake of Total Recall.  Why Universal would pick a director who failed at remaking another film is a bit of a mystery, but the company must be looking at his success with the Underworld franchise and hoping that he can build a similar franchise using the Mummy concepts.  Still, it brings to mind the classic Kevin Smith line: “in Hollywood, you fail upwards.”

The script for the reboot is being written by Jon Spaihts (Prometheus), with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci producing along with Sean Daniel and Jim Jacks, who also produced the recent Mummy franchise.  This would be Universal’s third shot at a Mummy franchise, following the original 1932-1955 series (which produced six films) and the more recent series starring Brendan Fraser.

I know that a lot can be done with a Mummy movie, so it’s unlikely that Spaihts and Wiseman will simply rehash the Fraser films, but I’m not sure others will see it that way… after all, fans here the word “reboot” and things often get ugly quickly!