When word came out last September that Total Recall remake director Len Wiseman was attached to helm the in-development Mummy reboot in development at Universal Pictures, it was assumed that it was going to be his next project. Apparently that's not the case, however, as The Wrap is now reporting that scheduling conflicts have caused the filmmaker to back out of the film.
While one would think that a setback like this would cause a few delays in a project's development, apparently that's not the case here. Universal has the movie on the fast track now and producers Sean Daniels, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are already on the hunt for a new filmmaker to take over the project. Previous reports have said that the studio wants to have the film ready to for a release date some time during the summer of 2014, and if that's still the timetable they want to stick to then they'll have to find a replacement director quickly and get cameras rolling.
The project has been seen as Universal hitting the restart button on The Mummy trilogy that starred Brendan Fraiser and produced three fairly successful box office hits (grossing nearly $460 million domestically all together), but apparently the film will be going a much different route than the last three movies did. In an interview late last year Wiseman said that the new film would be a "modern-day take" and would be more of a horror movie. The Wrap adds that "though The Mummy character is a monster, the reboot is expected to provide him with a human personality."
The most recent update on the project before this one came all the way back in February when we learned that Hunger Games screenwriter Billy Ray was working on a new version of the script while Prometheus scribe Jon Spaihts reworked his already existing draft. Going by the newest report, it would seem that Universal will continue working with Spaiht's version (though it's worth nothing that The Wrap doesn't mention Ray anywhere in their article).
So what is Wiseman doing that is keeping him too busy to work on The Mummy? It's actually hard to say. He doesn't seem to have any film projects lined up and ready to go immediately, though he is serving as an executive producer on the new series Sleepy Hollow with Kurtzman and Orci. He directed the pilot of the show, but considering the episode is done - and premiered at San Diego Comic-Con - it's hard to say what it is that Wiseman will be doing instead of venturing into the bizarre horror/family adventure genre. Perhaps he's working on a secret project that hasn't been announced yet?
