Brendan Fraser had two movies reach the hundred million dollar mark last summer. Yet one – **The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor **was considered a massive flop – while the other, Journey To The Centre Of The Earth 3D, was something of a sleeper success, showing excellent legs after an opening of $21 million.
So guess which one has just had a sequel announced? Unusually for Hollywood, it’s the project that makes sense – yes, Journey To The Centre Of The Earth 2 is on its way.
This time, though, the movie won’t be based on a Jules Verne story (Verne, inconsiderately ignoring the possibility of franchises, only wrote one Journey story), and won’t involve a journey to the centre of the earth. Instead, it will be based on an original spec script by Richard Outten, entitled Mysterious Travels: The Lost Map Of Treasure Island. Hopefully, by the time the movie comes out, it'll be known as Mysterious Travels: The Lost Map Of Treasure Island: Journey To The Centre Of The Earth 2: With Brendan Fraser, causing a worldwide shortage of colons.
Outten’s script combines elements of Verne’s Mysterious Island, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, positing a theory that all three stories took place on the same island. And it’s that island to which Fraser’s Professor Trevor Anderson and his nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson) will travel.
Deals for Fraser and Hutcherson haven’t been closed yet, as it’s still early days, but New Line clearly expects the duo to return. Eric Brevig, who directed the original, also hasn’t confirmed his return journey, but he is developing the script with Outten.
The first movie, which has become a big hit on DVD, was good, clean fun, and was one of the biggest 3D films to date. The story for the sequel seems suitably outlandish and, while we can’t say we’re trembling with anticipation, we’ll be interested to see how it develops.