The Mummy...3?

Whoa - the first Mummy movie was surprisingly good (Dave and I laughed our asses off when we went to see it!), and the second one was...well...not so much.

And so we're looking at a third Mummy movie now? Really? Hm.

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Al Gough, who is co-writing the third installment in the Mummy film franchise with partner Miles Millar, told SCI FI Wire that the sequel will unwrap a new mummy and feature a character who is the grown son of Rick and Evie (played in the previous films by Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz). It's aiming to shoot this summer under director Rob Cohen (Stealth) for a 2008 release.

Gough and Millar, who also created The CW's Smallville, said the sequel will also have a new concept. "Stephen Sommers [who wrote and directed the previous two films] and his partner, Bob Ducsay, ... approached us and said, 'Steve doesn't want to write the third movie. Would you guys be interested?'" Gough said in an interview. "And we were like, 'Well, it's a third.' But then they had a concept for it that we really liked. They had an idea for the movie, which is something we always wanted to do. So we're like, 'Well, if we don't do it, they're going to do it in this movie.'"

Gough said that he and Millar added their own ideas to the script, including a storyline centering on the main characters of Rick and Evie. "We figured out a really good family story with Rick and Evie, and [their son] Alex is now grown up. So it's really interesting." Alex was played as a young boy in 2001's The Mummy Returns by Freddie Boath.

As for whether Fraser and Weisz will reprise their roles in the film, Gough said that he was confident the script is good enough to persuade them to return. "They're in negotiations," he said. "So the plan is to bring them back. I think it'll end up being Brendan and Rachel, ultimately. They're the core of the movie. That's why people love the Mummy movies. And then it's taking that and then expanding it and introducing [a] new character and a new mummy. So we're really excited to get going. We met with Rob Cohen today, and he's really jazzed to do it. So fingers crossed, God willing, we'll be shooting this summer and it'll be out in the summer of '08."

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Hm, now that I think about it, the first Mummy movie DID give us Oded Fehr, who I've always thought was really hot, down to his voice. I preferred younger Oded with the long hair and goatee, but I've seen him in a number of things since and still enjoy seeing him... I even picked out his voice as Dr Fate on the Justice League cartoons a couple years ago - very distinctive, very sexy!