The Mummy

It was reported some time ago that Total Recall director Len Wiseman would be directing a reboot of The Mummy franchise at Universal and last we'd heard, a script was being written by Prometheus writer Jon Spaihts.

Vulture is now reporting that Universal is so eager to get a script ready to shoot this year, that they've hired The Hunger Games screenwriter Billy Ray to pen a completely different script for the project. An insider told them that both scripts will probably end up fused together...

"Horror" and "epic" are two words being bandied about by director Len Wiseman when it comes to The Mummy reboot he was attached to in September.

Movieweb caught up with the helmer of the Total Recall remake and got him chatting about Universal's new take on the classic movie monster.  Beyond those two aforementioned words, Wiseman describes the new film as "more of a modern day version of what would happen if we came across a mummy in our world today. It is pretty fascinating."

He sounds uncertain if it's the film he'll do next - because he dropped the line "if The Mummy is to be the next movie for me" - but he went on to explain what's getting him excited about the project.

Len Wiseman, fresh off of the Total Recall remake, is attached to direct The Mummy for Universal, says Deadline.  The latest film, another reboot of the classic Universal monster, is expected to hit theaters during summer 2014.  Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Star Trek) are producing the project with Jon Spaihts scripting.

Universal Pictures is partnering with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to "reimagine" some of the studio's library titles.  Ready for this?

Kurtzman and Orci’s K/O Paper Products will develop and produce a modern reimagining of The Mummy alongside producer Sean Daniel and writer Jon Spaihts. The pair will also develop and produce Universal’s reimagined Van Helsing, with Tom Cruise attached to star in and produce the film.

Van Helsing, as you know, was the 2004 misfire from Stephen Sommers which starred Hugh Jackman.  (Sommers also directed the first two entries in The Mummy franchise.)

Here's the official word from the studio.

Screenwriter Jon Spaihts has become one of the most in-demand screenwriters in Hollywood, partially due to his sci-fi spec script Passengers, which led to him working up the first drafts for Ridley Scott's upcoming space epic Prometheus.

Recently, it was announced that Universal Pictures hired Spaihts to come up with some sort of new take on The Mummy for a planned reboot, although that's something he hasn't started writing yet, as he finishes up on two projects for Jerry Bruckheimer, the second being an original space adventure. 

There’s a mug currently sitting in my garage.  One of those kitschy collectibles that you couldn’t serve a cup of coffee in, it’s too big and clumsy, so its purpose is nothing other than to sit on a shelf and look gaudy.  And I do mean gaudy.  This mug features a sculpted image of Boris Karloff as The Mummy.  The color scheme is weak.  Situated inside the mug, at its base, is some blue “Egyptian artifact.”  I can’t tell what is, to be honest.  Universal released the mug in the late-‘90s and, out of the collection of mugs the studio released, it is certainly not the best one.

A friend recently commented on this mug – I was trying to sell the damn thing off during a garage sale – and we got to discussing The Mummy’s merit as a Universal classic monster.  He liked The Mummy.  I, on the other hand, was never a fan.  While I certainly appreciated Karloff’s transformation in the film, I found the overall story execution slow and clunky.  The sequels that followed were never that good either, in my opinion.  The rest of the Universal monster lot?  Loved ‘em.  For any sort of Mummy fix (and, yes, I’ll keep capitalizing “Mummy” – he deserves it), I always turned to Hammer Films, or The Monster Squad, or that segment of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie with Julianne Moore.

Universal Pictures is planning a reboot of its succesful The Mummy franchise. Variety reports that the studio has set Prometheus screenwriter Jon Spaihts on the project.

"I see it as the sort of opportunity I had with Prometheus," Spaihts tells the outlet. "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."

Universal originally released The Mummy in 1932 and followed it with four sequels between then and 1944, including The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost and The Mummy's Curse. In 1955, the studio spoofed the property with Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy and then left the franchise dormant until a big screen reboot in 1999.