The Mummy needs to have a fourth film released to fix a longstanding issue with the franchise’s legacy. An attempt to reboot the universe with Tom Cruise’s The Mummy (2017) and spawn Universal’s Dark Universe failed spectacularly and the magic of the first movie has remained out of reach. But another movie in the franchise can save The Mummy‘s legacy once and for all.
With Brendan Fraser’s return to acting, the original stars of The Mummy could reconvene in the perfect opportunity to save the franchise. Fraser himself has said that he would be open to returning to the role of Rick O’Connell for another The Mummy movie. While The Mummy 4 would certainly have challenges to overcome, it could still ultimately come out on top.
How The Mummy 4 Can Save The Legacy After Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor
The Mummy franchise has had a blemish on its legacy ever since the 2008 release of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor owing to a combination of recasting of original The Mummy characters and forgetting what made the original movies great in the first place. The Mummy 4 can revive the franchise and help people to forget The Mummy 3 and not leave that as the final note on the franchise, much as The Matrix Resurrections attempted to do by shifting the public narrative away from the poorly received The Matrix Revelations. With Brendan Fraser open to returning, producers could bring back Rachel Weiz to reprise her role as Evelyn Carnahan and retcon the poor recasting choice of the third movie, while moving away from the story of the somewhat annoying Alex O’Connell.
The Mummy 4 can also deliver a much stronger plot than The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which felt driven only by the protagonist’s desire for another adventure away from their dull lives. Instead, Rick and Evie can be brought back in by an urgent need to finish what they started. This would allow for more exploration of the earlier plot lines that circled around Rick O’Connell’s experience as a French legionnaire and Evelyn Carnahan’s past as a descendant of an ancient Egyptian princess in The Mummy Returns. All of this would of course bring the characters back to the original setting of Egypt and offer a return to the flair and adventure that made the franchise great, rewriting it’s post The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor legacy.
Why The Mummy 4 Should End The Franchise
After such a struggle with The Mummy 3, it would be great for The Mummy 4 to bring back everything viewers loved about the original 1999 movie and end the franchise on a high note. However, The Mummy 4 should be the final The Mummy movie. It would give space for redemption and closure, but there are ultimately only so many times you can accidentally awaken a mummy from the dead. Ending the franchise with a successful The Mummy 4 would be the perfect way to leave audiences remembering how great it was, and not worrying about how the franchise jumped the shark.
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