Brendan Fraser’s Surprising Return to His 27 Year Old Action Adventure Franchise Has Made the Original Movie a Streaming Sensation on Netflix

For many people, Brendan Fraser reprising his role as Rick O’Connell in a new sequel to The Mummy was never on the cards. Shortly after Fraser made a huge return to Hollywood with his Oscar-winning role in The Whale and several other highly acclaimed roles, the actor began to warm to the idea of bringing back his action hero in a belated sequel to the adventure horror franchise. Now, as filming gets underway on The Mummy 4, Fraser is also enjoying a moment on streaming as the movie that started it all in 1999 has jumped into the Netflix streaming chart to make it a hit again after 27 years. As the Halloween season approaches, there are many older horror movies starting to ascend the charts, and The Mummy is one film that deserves its place among your watch list this spooky season.

Taking loose inspiration from Universal’s 1932 horror movie, The Mummy turns the tale into an Indiana Jones style romp that saw Fraser’s hero teaming up with Evelyn Carnahan, a librarian played by Rachel Weisz, and her brother on an expedition to find the City of the Dead. After reading from the Book of the Dead, the team inadvertently awake Imhotep, an ancient cursed priest, leading them into a race to save Evelyn being sacrificed in order to revive Imhotep’s lost lover. The film turned its modest $80 million budget into a worldwide gross of $413 million, leading to a quick turnaround of The Mummy Returns in 2001 and a third, and less well received, movie The Mummy: Curse of the Dragon Emperor in 2008. In between the main franchise releases, prequel movie The Scorpion King – with Dwayne Johnson getting his first big lead role in Hollywood after an atrocious CGI debut in The Mummy Returns – arrived in 2002 and was itself followed by four straight to video sequels/prequels.

The Mummy Returning Again Can Be a Nostalgic Hit

While The Mummy franchise appeared to really lose steam in its third installment – and we won’t dive too deeply into the Scorpion King movies – a lengthy break may be exactly what was needed for the saga to come back with another hit movie. Legacy sequels have been a mixed bag in the last decade with huge hits like Top Gun: Maverick being offset by disappointing releases Disney+ series Willow. When it comes to The Mummy, there are several reasons why it could be exactly the right time to bring back this iteration outside the usual play for a nostalgic revival among those who remember seeing the original movie in cinemas almost three decades ago. Earlier this year, Lee Cronin released a horrifying, dark take on The Mummy, which came with a bizarre social media movement making sure that everyone was aware that “Brendan Fraser is not in this movie.” That in itself built up enough of a viral stir to show just how many people still wanted to see Fraser return to the franchise and soon it was announced that The Mummy 4 had been green lit.

Aside from Fraser’s popularity among audiences, The Mummy has always been a go-to favorite for anyone looking to forget the world for a couple of hours and go on a magical and thrilling journey back into the 1920s on an adventure of a lifetime. Among all the dark horror movies and superhero blockbusters ruling the box office, an old fashioned action adventure could be exactly the kind of movie to do a decent bit of business at the box office before becoming a monster hit on streaming several months later. The Mummy 4 will not only be bringing back Fraser, Weisz, John Hannah and others, but will be directed by Radio Silence – best known for their involvement in recent Scream movies and Ready or Not – and ignore the events of The Curse of the Dragon Emperor to be a direct sequel to the first two movies set in the 1950s. The new movie is expected to be released in October 2027, but in the meantime there is no better time to return to the original film while it is available to stream on Netflix.