Should It Stay Dead? The Mummy

Welcome back to “Should it Stay Dead?”, where we do all the hard work so TV executives don’t have to. So far we’ve focused on old TV shows, and how they can be given a new lick of paint and cynically shuffled out onto television schedules for the nostalgia factor. This time though, we’re going to tackle a movie.

The Mummy, and its sequel The Mummy Returns, are big dumb movies about ancient Egyptian curses and Indiana Jones style tomb raiding. They’re also awesome, and for a time convinced people that Brendan Fraser might be a movie star. So what was it all about?

Brendan Fraser’s wisecracking American adventurer, Rick, and Rachel  Weisz’s stuffy English librarian, Evie, are thrown together in a quest to find the ancient Egyptian city of the dead. It’s a film that cares more about being a fun ride than being deep, meaningful or even logical (again, thanks so much Christopher Nolan), and rises above its own averageness thanks to the chemistry of its two leads.

There’s something about an ancient priest who gets resurrected and decides to destroy the world, but really the bad guy is not important. Unless of course you’re paying attention to the plot. You shouldn’t be; at least not that hard. It’s an adventure story set in Egypt, Indiana Jones if Jones was less grouchy and more chill. There’s a cloud of locusts at one point. Also, remember the flesh eating scarabs and the mummy warriors?

If you’re looking for more I suppose there are some other characters. Scottish actor John Hannah plays Evie’s ham-handed brother, for added comic relief. Meanwhile Chicago PD‘s Kevin J. O’Conner takes the role of Rick’s buddy in the French Foreign Legion.

To my surprise, a revival of The Mummy is already in the works, but the information available about it already has the smell of inevitable failure. The reboot is set to be part of Universal Studios’ Universal Monsters shared movie universe, which kicked off last year with Dracula Untold (don’t worry, I’d forgotten about that one too).

This new version of The Mummy, according to its director Len Wiseman, will be “a completely different film” and a “modern day take” on the story. The most recent available synopsis of the film says it will follow a US navy seal called Tyler Colt (actual character name you guys) hunting terrorists in Iraq only to discover an ancient tomb in the desert.

The Pitch

When the movie bombs, the next port of call will be a TV adaptation, which is where we come in. What would a TV version of The Mummy look like?

The Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz version had plenty of interesting ancient-curse type nonsense to it that would make great fodder for a TV show. Fantasy shows, and fantasy procedurals, are all the rage at the moment and The Mummy is the perfect opportunity to jump on the bandwagon. The likes of Once Upon a Time, Grimm and Sleepy Hollow have all managed multi-season runs with strong audiences.

In the vein of Sleepy Hollow, in fact, what if one of the characters from the original trilogy is blasted forward in time to the modern day? Weisz is in no great hurry to abandon a succession of prestige films for the weekly grind of television, so I guess it will have to be Brendan Fraser.

Of course, the show also needs to be a mystery-of-the-week show, because that’s what’s popular. Alongside Fraser’s swashbuckling 1930s hero, we’ll need a straight man, or woman. If Fraser is bringing the action then his partner will need to bring the smarts. If the show’s writers are feeling particularly lazy, then the partner ought to be a librarian, same as Evie. Katherine Heigl is looking to do TV again, isn’t she?

In Sleepy Hollow, there is a seemingly endless well of humour to be drawn from 18th century Ichabod’s reaction to mundanities of the modern day. Fraser has been in plenty of comedies so I’m sure he’s got the comedic chops to do the same. Right?

He could be all “What’s this internet thing all about? In my time we used to explore ancient ruins, now young people just post pictures of them on Instagram. What happened?”

After that the series practically writes itself. An evil mummy tries to slowly take over New York from the safety of a museum and Brendan Fraser must stop him. If we’re being honest you could probably just lift the plot of Ghostbusters 2 and tweak it here and there.

Should all else fail, it might be worth paying Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson an exorbitant fee to make a couple of guest spots in a few episodes. There was that spin-off he was in about a scorpion king or something, so he could play that character again, but in the modern day.

If you’re a Universal Studios executive reading this in 2017, I’m very sorry your movie just tanked. Have your people speak to my people and we can get you a nice Network TV show going.