The Mummy: Book of the Dead Is the Title of Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz's Sequel, in Theaters October 15, 2027

On Thursday, October 15, 2026, Universal Pictures announced the title of the fourth Mummy movie, the one that brings Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz back as Rick and Evie O'Connell: The Mummy: Book of the Dead. The film opens in theaters on October 15, 2027, exactly one year after the reveal, which the studio posted on the franchise's official social accounts. If you grew up on the 1999 movie, you'll know why the name matters. The Book of the Dead is the black book Evie reads aloud one night in the ruins of Hamunaptra, and it's the book that wakes Imhotep in the first place.

What Happened

The announcement itself was tiny: a title, a logo, a date. Everything else had already been pieced together over the past year. Radio Silence, the directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, is directing from a script by David Coggeshall (The Family Plan). The Hollywood Reporter points out that the pair brought Scream back in 2022, followed it with Scream VI, and released Ready or Not 2: Here I Come this year.

The cast list looks like a reunion photo. Besides Fraser and Weisz, Variety and Deadline list John Hannah, Kevin J. O'Connor and Oded Fehr, all back from the original films, plus newcomers Michael Johnston and Numan Acar. Hannah plays Evie's charming freeloader brother Jonathan again, and Fehr is back as Ardeth Bay, the Medjai warrior. O'Connor's return is the fun puzzle: his sniveling sidekick Beni died in the 1999 film. Universal hasn't released any plot details.

One small wrinkle if you're searching for the movie: Variety's report gives the title as The Mummy: The Book of the Dead. Universal's own post, as quoted by The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline, says The Mummy: Book of the Dead. We're going with the studio's version.

Why It Matters

This is the sequel fans actually wanted. THR describes the new film as a direct sequel to The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001). That means it skips 2008's Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, where Maria Bello played Evie instead of Weisz. It also has nothing to do with Universal's 2017 Tom Cruise reboot, which Variety calls a critical and commercial disaster that ended the studio's plans for a connected Dark Universe. Weisz hasn't played Evie in 25 years.

The title is a wink to the first film. Of all the names Universal could have picked, it went with the object that started the trouble in 1999: a curious librarian reads one passage out loud, and a 3,000-year-old curse wakes up. The studio hasn't said whether the book itself will be part of the story. Still, putting it in the title tells longtime fans exactly what kind of movie this is meant to be.

The team has the right track record. Stephen Sommers' movies worked because they were scary and goofy in the same breath: scarab beetles crawling under skin, then Hannah fumbling for a shotgun. Radio Silence has spent its career on that same mix of horror and laughs, from the Ready or Not films to Abigail. The business case is strong, too. THR reports that the five theatrical movies the franchise has released since 1999 have grossed more than $1.8 billion worldwide. Producer Sean Daniel has worked on five earlier films in the series.

What Comes Next

The cameras are already rolling. Filming began on September 7, 2026, with London and Morocco as locations, and Film Stories reports that the shoot is expected to run until the end of the year. The release date has already moved once. Universal first set the film for May 19, 2028, then moved it up to October 15, 2027, this past April. Fraser, for his part, told Jimmy Fallon he's "doing my best to get this 57-year-old gear in shape."

There's also one question the announcement left open. None of the cast lists from the trades include Imhotep himself, the role Arnold Vosloo played in the first two films. A movie named after the book that raises the dead doesn't announce its mummy? We'll find out when Universal is ready to say more.

Until then, it's a great week to rewatch the 1999 original. When you get to the night scene in the clip above, notice how casually the disaster starts: no villain, no grand plan, just one bookworm who can't resist reading an ancient language out loud. And if getting the old crew back together is your favorite movie pleasure, see where it all began in our review of Seven Samurai.