As a huge fan, I was absolutely thrilled when I heard Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz were coming back for another film! It’s not just another sequel – this feels like a real moment. The announcement came in November 2025, and we’ve been counting down the days ever since. It’s finally hitting theaters on May 19, 2028, and I can’t wait! Radio Silence – Matt Bellini-Olpin and Tyler Gillett – are directing, with a script by David Coggeshall. It’s great to see original producer Sean Daniel back involved, and even more amazing that Brendan Fraser is not only starring but also stepping up as an executive producer. You can really tell how much this project means to him, and that makes me even more excited!
There’s a special kind of buzz around The Mummy 4 – it’s not just typical excitement for another sequel. It’s more heartfelt, fueled by fans eager to see a cherished series and its original stars reunited after years of attempts that didn’t pan out. For nearly twenty years, plans for a fourth film were started, cancelled, and replaced with ideas that ultimately didn’t work. Now, it finally seems like the franchise, which has earned $1.8 billion worldwide, is making a comeback in the way fans have been hoping for.
The Mummy Franchise Shaped A Generation
To truly appreciate the newer films, it’s important to remember the impact of the original. The Mummy, directed by Stephen Sommers and released in 1999, tells the story of a team of explorers and archaeologists in 1920s Egypt who unintentionally revive a powerful, vengeful mummy while exploring a cursed tomb.
The 1999 film The Mummy was a surprising success. Made simply to be fun, its exciting and adventurous spirit really connected with viewers – more so than many other big movies at the time. It earned $417.6 million globally from an $80 million production cost. A sequel, The Mummy Returns, followed in 2001, marking Dwayne Johnson’s first film role. That movie also did well, bringing in $436 million worldwide and making the two films a hugely successful adventure pairing.
Talk about a Mummy 4 started way back in 2008, even before The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor came out. But after that third movie didn’t do well with audiences or at the box office – and as Marvel’s superhero films became really popular – plans for another film starring Brendan Fraser were scrapped in 2012. Instead, they decided to start the series over completely.
Tom Cruise starred in the 2017 reboot of The Mummy, which was meant to kick off Universal’s ‘Dark Universe’ – a series of films based on classic movie monsters. Despite costing $125 million to make, the film received poor reviews and didn’t perform well at the box office, leading Universal to abandon plans for the Dark Universe.
Universal finally understood what fans had been saying for years: they didn’t want a reboot of The Mummy; they wanted a continuation of the original movies starring Brendan Fraser. After Fraser won an Academy Award in 2022 for his role in The Whale, talk about a fourth movie with him as Rick O’Connell really picked up, and Universal eventually agreed to make it happen.
The Return of the O’Connells in The Mummy Franchise
In November 2025, exciting news broke: Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz were confirmed to return as their iconic characters Rick O’Connell and Evelyn O’Connell. Shortly after, Variety reported that John Hannah would also reprise his role as Jonathan Carnahan, Evie’s witty brother who provided much of the humor in the original trilogy.
The new movie will pick up where The Mummy Returns left off, essentially skipping the third film in the series to stay truer to the original story. Brendan Fraser has suggested it will take audiences back to well-known settings and recapture the exciting feel of the first movies, with filmmakers prioritizing real sets and practical effects over computer imagery to create a similar atmosphere.
I was thrilled to hear Brendan Fraser on The Tonight Show confirm that The Mummy 4 is actually going to happen! He’s 57 and ready to step back into the role he made famous way back in 1999, and honestly, it felt so right. That little moment – him jokingly asking for luck – really showed me why we all still love his Rick O’Connell after all these years while the studio was considering other options. He just has this naturally good-hearted and steady quality that made even the wildest parts of those movies feel believable and relatable, and I’m so excited to see him do it again.
Radio Silence Makes The Mummy 4 The Adventure Event Of The Decade
The director selection truly completes the picture, and it’s a brilliant one. Radio Silence – the team of Bettini-Olpin and Gillett – first gained attention with their work on V/H/S. They then achieved mainstream success with 2019’s Ready or Not, which was a major financial hit, earning $57 million from a $6 million budget. They followed that up by successfully revitalizing the Scream franchise with both its fifth and sixth films in 2022 and 2023. Their continued success is evident in their upcoming 2026 film, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, and this same creative energy is exactly what The Mummy 4 requires.
Radio Silence clearly loves exploring the stories behind established franchises, and they’re skilled enough to refresh those stories while staying true to their core appeal. Their work reviving the Scream series showed that they deeply understand what fans want from a movie – they respect those expectations and find ways to build upon them instead of completely changing things just for the sake of being different.
Bringing back the original cast and familiar feel of the O’Connell story could lead to a sequel that’s more than just a nostalgic trip – it could be a genuinely good continuation of the series. Plans are already underway for a follow-up, indicating Universal Pictures sees this as the start of a new franchise, not just a single movie.
2026-07-24 19:08