Wow. If someone were looking for a way to generate more outraged frothing online, we weren’t sure they could top the foam-generating combo of a remake with producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and one of the writers of Prometheus, Jon Spaihts. But, Imhotep bless ‘em, the team have found a way, grabbing Len Wiseman to direct the eventual film.
Yup, the man who most recently re-made Total Recall is reuniting with the duo who brought him in to direct the pilot for their Hawaii 5-0 TV reboot. You can almost hear the gnashing of teeth from here.
But of course, not a frame of the movie has been shot yet, and Wiseman does at least have some experience bringing supernatural creatures to life with the Underworld movies. And you can't deny that Total Recall ***looked *pretty. (Ducks torrent of fresh abuse).
Apparently, while Universal did rather handsomely on Stephen Sommers’ all-action trilogy, the studio is OK with the new team going a little freakier. “When I first heard Universal was relaunching this, that is the image that popped into my head, the period tale, the old monster, but when Bob and Alex pitched it, there was a great new take and approach, and a very different mummy as well,” Wiseman tells Deadline. “It’s a darker twist on the material, a scarier version.”
“One of the things that interested me with this mummy is, he’s still in essence a man,” Wiseman says. “They haven’t turned his brain into a monster brain. He still has a personality and is very cunning and calculating. He’s a true character in any form, and in creature form, even if he is that staggering creature, it becomes more important that he’s a thinking, calculating person.”
Er… You guys do realise that Sommers’ version of the character wasn’t a shuffling monster thing either, right? And that even the 1932 Boris Karloff version had more to it?
Either way, assuming it wraps – fnarr – on time, expect this one to hit in summer 2014. We await the news of Kate Beckinsale's casting in the meantime.