Glossing over the fact that the last Mummy film was released in 2008, Universal is already putting plans for a reboot into motion. The studio has already hired Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to produce the film and Prometheus writer Jon Spaihts to pen a draft. Now sources are saying that Total Recall director Len Wiseman will be the one to direct the reboot for The Mummy.

According to Deadline, Kurtzman and Orci will produce the film under their Universal-based K/O Paper Products, alongside former partners Sean Daniel and Jim Jacks. Daniel and Jacks worked on the previous Mummy trilogy, which grossed over $1.25 billion. The site reports that Spaihts’ script will be set into a “modern-day context.”

Prometheus: The Art of the Film
Written by Mark Salisbury
Published by: Titan Books
Hardcover | 192 Pages
Release Date: June 12, 2012

Mark Salisbury is the former editor of Britain’s distinguished movie magazine, Empire, and author of a number of books about film, including Alice in Wonderland A Visual: Companion and Burton on Burton. His latest book is Prometheus: The Art of the Film, a gorgeous 192-page hardcover companion to Ridley Scott‘s return to science-fiction, Prometheus

Published by Titan Books, Prometheus: The Art of the Film includes a foreword from director Ridley Scott and two essays: A Return to Science Fiction, in which Scott summarizes why he wanted to revisit the universe he created in Alien and how the progression of a story that was originally conceived as an Alien prequel mutated into an original science-fiction story.

DISCLAIMER: This feature contains specific plot details and spoilers regarding Sir Ridley Scott‘s latest film, Prometheus. By now you’ve no doubt dedicated hours to scouring the darkest corners of the internet in hopes of finding answers and explanations to the film’s numerous questions and mysteries.

This feature isn’t an attempt to assuage geeks and enthusiasts who demand answers from their speculative science-fiction, but it will discuss the ending of the film so reader beware. But first, let’s start with tonight’s viewing: Ishirô Honda’s 1962 film, King Kong Vs. Godzilla, starring Tadao Takashima, Kenji Sahara and Yû Fujiki.

Mr. Tako (Ichirô Arishima), the chairman of a pharmaceutical company, learns the bizarre tomato-sized berries that grow on Farou Island are a miracle cure. The natives of the island worship a god called King Kong, a colossal ape whose size can be attributed to the berries.

Tako leads a scientific expedition to the island to retrieve the berries and capture the monster. Meanwhile, a crew of American pilots discover Godzilla has escaped from the glacier that sealed his fate back in 1955. From there, King Kong escapes his captors and goes toe-to-toe with Japan’s King of the Monsters in an epic battle royale that manages to throw a giant octopus creature in for good measure.

Prometheus
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Written by: Damon Lindelof, Jon Spaihts
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Logan Marshall-Green
Twentieth Century Fox | Rated R
Release Date: June 8, 2012

“Some of you may have figured out we’re not home yet. We’re only halfway there. Mother’s interrupted the course of our journey.

She’s programmed to do that should certain conditions arise. They have. Seems she has… intercepted a transmission of unknown origin. She got us up to check it out.” – Captain Dallas, Alien

In Ridley Scott‘s seminal 1979 film, Alien, the crew members of the Nostromo are awakened from hypersleep to investigate a mysterious beacon on LV-426, a natural satellite orbiting a ringed planet in the binary star system Zeta Reticuli [Yes, this will be on the quiz]. The year is 2122.

In Prometheus, Scott’s first science-fiction film since 1982’s Blade Runner, the year is 2089. Archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) have discovered a star map within the pictographs and ideograms of several otherwise unconnected civilizations.

They interpret the star map as evidence of mankind’s forerunners, an open invitation to meet our makers. Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), the elderly founder of the Weyland Corporation, funds the construction of the scientific vessel Prometheus to follow the map to a distant world – one in the Zeta Reticula system.

Universal Pictures has gotten a hell of a lot of mileage out of The Mummy series over the years. The 1932 original film helped establish Boris Karloff as a major horror star and spawned five sequels, including 1955’s Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. Then in 1999 the studio revived the property as a big-budget Raiders of the Lost Ark-style adventure with state-of-the-art visual effects and reaped huge rewards. The revitalized Mummy franchise made stars out of Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz and spawned two sequels of inferior quality, but still proved to be blockbusters for the studio, not to mention inspiring the Scorpion King spin-off series.

The last sequel, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, was released just four years ago, but now Universal is looking to reboot the franchise once again, and this time they’ve tapped Jon Spaihts to write the new movie.