When you think of the franchises that have been remade, rebooted, sequelized, franchised, reimagined and spun off with the most regularity, The Mummy might not be the first thing that comes to mind.
And yet, the legacy left behind by Stephen Sommers’ era-defining remake of the 1932 horror classic is that of a sprawling, unwieldy, and largely terrible universe populated by successors that are either unremarkable, uninteresting, or among the worst Hollywood has ever had to offer.
Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz can be pinpointed as the factors behind an entire generation’s sequel awakenings, and nobody in their right mind can argue that The Mummy remains as entertainingly glorious now as it ever did. However, The Mummy Returns was a step down, and Tomb of the Dragon Emperor flat-out sucked.
Dwayne Johnson’s The Scorpion King was a solid enough old-fashioned adventure, but it ended up giving rise to no less than five direct-to-video sequels, with a reboot in the works. In addition, Tom Cruise’s take on The Mummy will go down as one of the modern era’s most embarrassing failures, with the Dark Universe continuing to endure solely as a laughing stock.
In essence, The Mummy is a remake that spawned two direct sequels, a spinoff that got four sequels and a reboot, and another unrelated rebooted that cratered at the box office. That’s a hell of a reputation, but the 1999 mini masterpiece continues to live on unaffected, with FlixPatrol naming it as one of the top-viewed titles on both iTunes and Sky Showtime this week.
