“The Mummy 4” directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett recently spoke to Entertainment Weekly on their press tour for “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come” and teased the upcoming sequel as “really, really beautiful and scary and sweeping, and it’s awesome.” Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz are reuniting for the movie as Rick and Evelyn O’Connell, respectively.
The directing duo, whose credits also include “Scream” (2022) and “Scream 6” (2023), said it was their longtime producer William Sherrick who landed them “The Mummy 4.” Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett were filming their vampire movie “Abigail” when Sherrick informed them he was going to try to line up for them the next “Mummy” movie. The filmmakers thought: “That’d be fucking crazy. There’s no way William’s gonna pull it off.”
“Cut to, we’re finishing ‘Abigail,’ and we’re meeting with Dave Coggeshall, the writer, and we’re designing a pitch,” Gillett said. “We have been in this line of work long enough to know that nothing is real until it’s very, very real. It’s all speculative, and it feels great to give energy to really wonderful ideas, but we have learned to keep those opportunities a little bit at arm’s distance because it’s just easy to have your heart broken.”
Bettinelli-Olpin added that Coggeshall’s script has “all of the heart and the character that you could hope for,” with Gillett noting: “I don’t think Brendan and Rachel are getting involved unless they love that script, and what they read, I think they really liked. And it’s a good script. It’s gonna be fun to make.”
Fraser and Weisz headlined 1999’s “The Mummy” and returned for 2001’s “The Mummy Returns,” but Weisz did not take part in 2008’s threequel “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.” Maria Bello replaced her in the role of Evelyn. Does Weisz return mean “Dragon Emperor” is no longer canon?
“Well, Rachel is in this one,” Bettinelli-Olpin said, with Gillett adding: “That should answer the question for you.”
Fraser is finally told the Associated Press last year that he’s been waiting 20 years to be able to make whatever the story is for “The Mummy 4.”
“The third one was a model of … how can I say this to the AP reporter? NBC had the rights to broadcast the Olympics that year,” Fraser said at the time. “So they put two together and we went to China. Working in Shanghai, an incredible experience. I’m proud of the third one because I think it’s a good standalone movie. We picked up and did what we do with a different crew on deck and gave it our best shot. But the one I wanted to make is forthcoming. And I’ve been waiting 20 years for this call. Sometimes it was loud, sometimes it was a faint telegraph. Now? It’s time to give the fans what they want.”
“The Mummy 4” is set for wide theatrical release on May 19, 2028 from Universal Pictures.
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