'The Mummy' Being Rebooted (Again) By Original 'Prometheus' Writer Jon Spaihts

When Universal rebooted The Mummy as an action-movie franchise in the Indiana Jones mold, the film made a star out of Brendan Fraser and did phenomenally well overall, especially given that it opened just two weeks before Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. (Looking at the numbers I wonder how many people saw The Mummy instead when they went to the theater to see Star Wars and shows were sold out, but I know that's how I saw the first Fraser film.)

Now, with the series kicked off in '99 having run its course through two sequels, three Scorpion King spin-off films, an animated series, and video games and amusement part rides,  Universal is going to try again.

Variety reports that Jon Spaihts will write a reboot of the franchise, which will be produced by Sean Daniel, who produced the series that started in '99.

Spaihts is perhaps best-known at this point for two as-yet unproduced sci-fi scripts, Passengers and Shadow 19. Keanu Reeves' interest in Passengers helped Spaihts get a job writing two Alien prequels for Ridley Scott. That project kicked off the film that became Prometheus. The script that we'll soon see in action in Ridley Scott's movie was written by Damon Lindelof, but the word Spaihts did put things in motion. He's also working on a couple projects with Jerry Bruckheimer.

So what will this new Mummy be? Right now details are thin, but we'll update when more info is available. Spaihts did tell Variety,

I see it as the sort of opportunity I had with 'Prometheus': 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.