Fans of Brendan Fraser would love a Mummy legacy sequel, but the best reboot would pit Fraser’s Rick O’Connell against other classic Universal Monsters. The ’90s saw studios give classic screen monsters big-budget revivals, such as Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula or Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein. Universal spent much of the decade trying to mount a fresh take on The Mummy, with horror greats such as Clive Barker, Wes Craven and George A. Romero all developing horror-focused remakes.
It was Stephen Sommers who hit on the notion of combining The Mummy with Indiana Jones, and the resulting 1999 blockbuster was a major success. The movie spawned two direct sequels and a long-running spin-off series with The Scorpion King movies. There was once talk of a fourth Mummy movie featuring the return of Brendan Fraser’s O’Connell, but that project fell apart. Instead, Universal tried to build a cinematic universe around its famous monsters library. Despite sprawling plans for this “Dark Universe,” the concept fell at the first hurdle due to the box-office disappointment of 2017’s The Mummy reboot, fronted by Tom Cruise.
Ironically, the studio’s attempts to reverse engineer its Univeral Monsters into action franchises ignored that 1999’s The Mummy already provided a solid action/horror template. After his career dipped in the years following 2008’s The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor, Fraser has been on a comeback trail, especially thanks to upcoming projects such as Batgirl and Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon. A revival of The Mummy would really cement his return, but instead of resurrecting Imhotep once again, the reboot should see O’Connell fighting other Universal Monsters.
Brendan Fraser Vs Dracula Needs To Happen
Reportedly, this was an early idea for The Mummy Returns – where Rick and Evie’s son created a plothole – before it was decided to bring back Arnold Vosloo’s Imhotep for a second bout. Sommers instead funneled the notion of a character fighting Universal Monsters into 2004’s Van Helsing, where Hugh Jackman’s titular hunter fought Dracula, his Brides, the Wolfman and Frankenstein’s Monster. Van Helsing has its followers but failed to kick off a new series, but given that Fraser’s O’Connell is already a seasoned monster hunter, a Mummy reboot could easily drop him into a story pairing him off against Dracula or the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The Mummy 1999’s balance of action setpieces with horror is a rare perfect blend, and it feels like the affection audiences have for the Mummy movie franchise only grows year by year.
If Universal seriously want to give their monster catalog a blockbuster makeover, framing it around one of their most popular – at least in terms of box office – iterations of a Universal Monster movie in recent memory isn’t the worst plan. Having O’Connell and his family battle against a new take on Dracula – it’s hard to imagine audiences hating someone like Mads Mikkelsen or Keanu Reeves in the role – would give the franchise a much-needed comeback, while later films could build up to some kind of Avengers-style event featuring all the classic monsters like Frankenstein’s Monster, The Wolf Man and the Creature. Of course, the title might be an issue, since a movie where Brendan Fraser’s O’Connell fought others monsters can’t really be dubbed The Mummy.
