Universal hires two writers to compete on Mummy reboot, hoping at least one of them can write an adequate Mummy movie

By Sean O'Neal | February 14, 2013 | 7:38pm

Aux Features Film

Universal’s efforts to ensure that its reboot of its remake of its bootmake of The Mummy has already included assigning it to Len Wiseman, whose work on the Underworld series and the recent Total Recall remake has demonstrated he has a flair for avoiding flair, that superfluous creativity that can so often delay a project from reaching its targeted release date. Now that quest for machine-like efficiency has proceeded to the semi-unusual step of hiring two screenwriters to draft competing versions of the same film, hoping that using their shared manpower they can produce a serviceably acceptable retread.

As Vulture reports in passing along their insider information, Prometheus co-writer Jon Spaihts will now be squaring off against The Hunger Games’ Billy Ray, with the idea that between the two they will surely come up with enough adequate ideas for one “Mummy set in modern society” movie. “My suspicion is that one of them will be a ‘structure-and-body’ man, and one’s going to be a ‘character-and-dialogue’ man — and that they’ll then just gang-bang them together into one script, crediting both writers,” that insider says, in the least sexy use of the word “gang-bang” in recorded history. So, provided Universal’s intentional clusterfuck goes as planned, The Mummy should be ready to fulfill expectations of having a mummy in it and also there’s someone running from him, probably next to Kate Beckinsale, all by summer 2014.