Len Wiseman has been hired to shepherd the reboot of The Mummy franchise. Apparently the studio wants to take the series in an entirely different and darker direction, so they hired Wiseman. So far, if we are keeping score at home, Len Wiseman created and directed the vastly underwhelming Underworld series, he directed the infinitely dumb Live Free or Die Hard, and he directed the remake bomb of the summer Total Recall. There are two common threads in Len Wiseman movies; Kate Beckinsale (his wife), and life-less set pieces. Maybe life-less is what a Mummy film needs? Probably not.
I am at my wits end with Hollywood. I get that monster movies will continually be revised and released etc, but why are we attaching hacks to projects that could be great. Say what you want about Stephen Sommers’ Mummy films, but at least they were fun. No they weren’t be any stretch the definitive Mummy film, but they were fun adventure films that killed time. Len Wiseman can only make lense-flare filled action scenes with his wife front and center. Nothing he has made gives me confidence this is a good idea. What I can tell you is that Wiseman is the perfect director for a studio that doesn’t want to take risks. He can make your movie on time, on a lower budget, and he wont be a problem to work with! I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but we have to stop giving this guy major franchises. He can’t do it. He can film is wife’s butt awesomely though.
I think every studio should just stop and think WWGDTD (What Would Guillermo Del Toro Do?) when thinking about starting a new sci-fi/horror franchise.
The scariest part of all this is that when I heard that the Mummy was being rebooted, I thought of Stephen Sommer’s movies, and not the Karloff original *shudder*