Mummy 4 reunites Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz — the pair Universal tried twice to replace
Universal spent 18 years selling The Mummy without Rick and Evie: one recast, one Tom Cruise flop, one dead cinematic universe. The box office never budged.
Rick and Evie are back in the same frame. On Tuesday, 13 October 2026, Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz were photographed together for the first time on the west London set of The Mummy 4, 25 years after The Mummy Returns. Weisz wore a belted maroon coat, Fraser a corduroy jacket over a green flannel shirt. No pith helmet yet, but give it time.
Cameras have been rolling since 7 September. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the Radio Silence duo behind Ready or Not, direct from a script by David Coggeshall, and John Hannah, Oded Fehr and Kevin J. O'Connor are back too. Universal has the film down for 15 October 2027 in the US, after swapping slots with Miami Vice '85 to bring it forward from May 2028.
Two attempts to do without them
Universal has spent almost two decades testing whether The Mummy actually needs these two. The results are in:
- 2008: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor keeps Fraser and recasts Evie with Maria Bello. Director Rob Cohen later claimed Weisz's agent rang to say she would not play the mother of a 21-year-old; Weisz never commented. About $403 million worldwide, the lowest of the trilogy.
- 2017: The studio drops the O'Connells altogether, hands the brand to Tom Cruise and bolts on the Dark Universe, with Russell Crowe as Dr Jekyll. About $409 million worldwide on a $195 million production budget, and a projected $95 million loss. The cinematic universe died after one film.
- 2026: Another studio has a go. Warner Bros.' Lee Cronin's The Mummy opens to $13.5 million in the US in April.
Fraser was honest about the recast: at a 2022 fan convention he said Bello was great, she just wasn't Weisz. The new directors are blunter still. Asked by Entertainment Weekly whether the 2008 film still counts, they answered with the cast list.
"Well, Rachel is in this one."
— Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, director, to Entertainment Weekly
Gillett added that this should answer the question. Translation: the 2008 film is out of canon, and Bello's Evie goes with it.
The monster was never the draw. The couple running from it was.
The number Mummy 4 has to beat
Here is my bet: The Mummy 4 becomes the biggest Mummy ever. The bar is The Mummy Returns, which made $435 million in 2001; the 1999 original took about $418 million. Look at the spread, though. Every film in the series has landed between $403 million and $435 million, with Weisz or without her, with Cruise or without him. Universal changed the cast, the tone and the business plan, and the box office barely moved.
What moves it now is the audience. The Mummy is the film a whole generation grew up rewatching on the telly, and those kids now buy the family's cinema tickets. Cruise's version proved a brand can open: $169.3 million worldwide in its first weekend, then the biggest global opening of his career. It could not make anyone care. A sequel that brings two Oscar winners back to the roles they first played in 1999 does not need a shared universe to sell tickets. It needs Fraser running from something and Weisz rolling her eyes at him.
The risks are obvious. The release is a year away, the plot is still under wraps, and Universal has a habit of treating this franchise as a launchpad for something bigger. If it resists that for once, Returns is beatable.
Universal tried a new Evie and then a new Rick. Next October it finds out what the original pair were worth all along.
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