Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz are in early talks to reunite for a new entry in Universal’s The Mummy franchise, according to multiple outlets that picked up Deadline’s report. Entertainment Weekly adds that the project is being steered by the filmmaking duo Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett), with a script from David Coggeshall.
The creative team taking shape
Radio Silence—the team behind Ready or Not and two recent Scream films—are attached to direct the new installment. Coggeshall, who wrote Mark Wahlberg’s Apple film The Family Plan and co-wrote Lee Daniels’ The Deliverance for Netflix, appears to have acknowledged his involvement by sharing the Deadline link with the post, “Cat’s out of the bag, I guess :)” on X. His produced credits corroborate those writing roles.
Status check: talks, not a studio announcement
As of now, this is not an official Universal greenlight: industry trades describe the negotiations as “in talks,” and no release date, logline, or production timeline has been announced. People’s roundup and EW’s report both frame it as an in-development project with details still to come.
The legacy they’d be returning to
Fraser and Weisz first co-starred in Stephen Sommers’ 1999 hit The Mummy and reunited in The Mummy Returns (2001). Weisz did not appear in 2008’s The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, where Maria Bello played Evelyn O’Connell. A standalone 2017 reboot starring Tom Cruise attempted to launch Universal’s “Dark Universe,” but poor reception and financial underperformance ended those plans.
Why this revival makes sense now
The franchise has renewed cultural momentum: the 25th-anniversary re-release of the 1999 film performed surprisingly well at the box office in 2024, and Fraser has enjoyed a widely covered career resurgence culminating in his 2023 Oscar win for The Whale. Both factors increase the commercial logic for a legacy sequel anchored by the original leads.
What Fraser has said before
Fraser has previously signaled he’s open to returning as Rick O’Connell if the concept is right: “I don’t know how it would work… but I’d be open to it if someone came up with the right conceit,” he told Variety in 2022. His comments then, paired with today’s reporting, frame this development as plausible rather than out-of-the-blue.
Awards context
Both stars have since become Oscar winners. Weisz won Best Supporting Actress in 2006 for The Constant Gardener. Fraser won Best Actor in 2023 for The Whale. Those credentials raise the bar on expectations for any revival.
Correcting a common plot mix-up
Some recaps misstate Evelyn’s fate. In The Mummy Returns, Weisz’s character dies during the story but is resurrected via the Book of the Dead before the film’s end—so the character was not written out of the series canon.
What we still don’t know
- Story & timeline: No confirmed plot or whether it continues the O’Connells’ arc after Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. (Fans will remember that film teased mummies discovered in Peru.)
- Casting beyond the leads: No announcements yet on returning characters like Jonathan Carnahan or Ardeth Bay.
- Production window: No start date or release date public at this time.
Why Radio Silence + Coggeshall is a coherent fit
From a craft perspective, Radio Silence balance kinetic action with pulpy, crowd-pleasing horror—a tonal space that matches why the 1999–2001 films worked. Coggeshall’s mix of action-comedy (The Family Plan) and horror (The Deliverance, Orphan: First Kill) suggests a writer comfortable with the franchise’s adventure-horror blend. That creative profile lines up with the course-correction Fraser himself has advocated post-2017: keep the “thrill ride” tone, not straight-ahead horror.
The Information is Collected from Yahoo and AOL.
