This past week, Egypt unveiled its new Grand Museum with a resounding announcement of their new magnificent structure spotlighting their country’s antiquities. After decades and decades of the West’s cultural theft of their relics, stories, and monopolizing of scholarship on Egypt, the museum’s opening highlights Egypt’s ownership and sovereignty over their rich history, archaeology, and scholarship, serving as a signal forward past the extreme Orientalist narratives the West thrust on it.

Prominent among those narratives is Universal’s popular The Mummy films of the late 1990s and early 2000s. And regrettably, in the same week, Universal let leak that they’re developing a sequel to those very same Orientalist flicks, with Rachel Weisz and Brendan Fraser both in talks to return, and the non-Egyptian duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (AKA Radio Silence) set to direct.

Apparently, after the 2017 flop starring Tom Cruise (at least that film had the North African Sofia Boutella star as the titular Mummy?), Universal wants to try this again, but with a more explicit nostalgic hook.

I enjoyed The Mummy movies as a kid. They were fun and romantic swashbuckling adventure films incorporating Egyptian mythology (and making up a lot about it) that I watched over and over again. I enjoyed watching Rick (Fraser) fight through hordes of zombies, and found kinship with the nerdy and bookish Evey (Weisz) saving the day with her extensive knowledge of Ancient Egypt. While I always knew on some level that they weren’t accurate, more than likely due to hiring virtually no Egyptians behind or in front of the camera, I still enjoyed them for what they were.

But as I’ve grown up and learned more about the systemic misrepresentation of the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA), I increasingly understood how thoroughly Orientalist those movies were in their depiction of Egypt, painting the country, its culture, and history as violent, mystical, archaic, and of course in need of taming by our predominantly white heroes. All following in the tradition of the original Mummy films of the ’30s and ’40s.

They continued to engage in the stereotyping and flattening of Egypt and North Africa that we’re finally starting to move past. We had a great depiction of Egypt in Moon Knight, directed by the Egyptian Mohamed Diab and co-starring Egyptian-Palestinian May Calamawy. We have the separate, already announced, Lee Cronin Mummy film from New Line, produced by James Wan and Jason Blum, in which Cronin cast actual Egyptians like Calamawy and May Elghety, slated for April 2026.

With these projects, we push the bar forward. While of course we have yet to see how Cronin’s Mummy film will actually do at depicting Egypt, casting Egyptians in main roles is a very promising step forward. With the news of his Mummy interpretation, I have been increasingly excited for it and content to leave the old blatantly Orientalist ones of the late ’90s/early 2000s in the past.

But now we have the news of Universal’s Mummy sequel, causing my heart to sink and my frustrations to boil over, as they have for other SWANA people I know.

Now, of course I want Brendan Fraser to continue to have his renewed success and adoration since the revelations of the abuse he received and subsequent ostraciszation, and to see more of his superb acting (sidenote, everyone needs to watch Doom Patrol). Rachel Weisz is a superb actress (everyone needs to watch The Favourite) whom I’m almost always delighted to watch on screen. I obviously loved watching them as a kid.

But that’s just it. I was a brown kid who didn’t know much better and starved for any shred of representation that I, and presumably other SWANA kids, just had to accept the Orientalist and miscast slop. Weisz, as great an actress she is, is not Egyptian as Evey is supposed to be via her mother, nor is the Israeli actor Oded Fehr who plays the explicitly Muslim and Egyptian Ardeth Bey, nor her brother played by John Hannah. I didn’t understand just how harmful the depiction of 1920s-30s Egypt, rife with corruption, mysticism, and depicting virtually all the Egyptian characters (except for Evey and Ardeth) as sleazy, villainous, and greedy, cementing the franchise’s intense Orientalism and racism.

And of course, everything they made up about Egyptian mythology to suit their story is aimed for the gullible not interested in exploring its rich depths. No, the Book of the Dead is not an actual physical book used to perform magic spells, only to help guide the dead on their journey to the afterlife. No, the Book of Amun-Ra is not a real thing in Egyptian mythology. No, Anubis was never associated with scorpions as The Mummy Returns lays on thick, nor is the “Bracelet of Anubis” an actual concept. Nor is whatever the hell the “Scorpion King” is supposed to be.

As a kid, I frequently noted these misconceptions, ultimately realizing that real stories from Egyptian mythology were far more intricate, engaging, and ultimately cooler than anything these movies had to offer. Perhaps they could have been better with Egyptians telling the story or being involved in them, but alas, it was the early 2000s when studios could more easily (if marginally compared to today, but still) get away with it.

When The Mummy Returns came out and went, it concluded the Imhotep story. We could all just leave these films in the past as problematic relics you can dip back in to enjoy. But regrettably, we’re living in an era plagued with too many reboots, sequels, and remakes, and the adoration for the fun these films provided has persisted, prompting Universal to make this move. Have we still not learned better from the past to just do something better, especially for marginalized audiences? Too often, however, the money-green lens of nostalgia glasses takes over, and our concerns are left in the dust.

There is no true justification, in 2025, for the non-Egyptian Weisz to keep playing the Egyptian Evey Hammond. Unless they retcon her role to be non-Egyptian, insofar as they actually care about the background the filmmakers initially established for her and her family, it’s a non-starter. Additionally and perhaps more urgently, Fehr should not be playing Bey, particularly after the past two years of Israel’s genocide on Gaza and the optics of an Israeli of European descent continuing to play such a prominent Arab and Egyptian character. Fehr has long built a career of playing Arab or other SWANA-coded characters, and it would be best for him to cease that practice. Let’s please not give him an excuse to keep doing it, especially now.

Besides the racism, Orientalism, and miscasting, if we step out to a larger focus, why must there be a sequel to a film that came out 24 years ago? While we absolutely want the best for now Oscar-winning Brendan Fraser, must he replay one of his most popular roles to continue finding success? Also, will this film involve Evey and Rick’s son Alex? Are the couple now grandparents? Are we so attached to the nostalgia of the 90s that we must investigate every aspect possible of these characters’ lives in movie form, and we can’t simply leave things to the imagination?

For both the sake of leaving these relics behind and to escape the shackles of nostalgia, it’s best on principle to just enjoy those Mummy movies on occasion while continuing to acknowledge how we should and have grown past them. Additionally, the announcement of this sequel in the light of Cronin’s film starring Egyptians is a rather low blow. So instead of being excited for a new take on the Mummy story with actual Egyptians and an experienced horror director, we’re regressing back to the problematic relics because we prefer those white leads? Is it okay for them to steal the thunder from Cronin and his Egyptian cast?

Additionally, there are now murmurings that Cronin’s film may have undergone a title change, meaning he and New Line had to cede ground on the “Mummy” title to Universal (sidenote, I don’t think one can truly trademark the term “mummy”). While mummies are found in various cultures, we associate them most with Egypt, making this news even more demoralizing. I still look forward to his film and seeing Calamawy, Elghety, and other Egyptians starring tell a fantastical horror story based on their heritage.

Now, of course I could be prematurely judging this sequel, and it’ll in good taste with bringing on Egyptian writers, Egyptian cast members playing Egyptian characters, and Evey and Rick passing on their story to a new generation including such Egyptian characters. However, much like the Indiana Jones franchise, the point of these films has been the Orientalism, making such a fantastical, nonsensical, and racist playground for a traditional western lens to enjoy.

There is a way to move past this, again, with people from Egypt to be able to tell their own fantastical stories, such as in Amr Salama’s superb Paranormal series on Netflix and Diab’s Moon Knight. It’s the lens that matters, and unfortunately I don’t anticipate Radio Silence doing better against the past unless they give us reasons to prove the assumption wrong. Otherwise, this will likely end up like another stubbornly Orientalist sequel film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Again, I would be very happy to be wrong in what I’ve articulated, but alas, the Hollywood machine has let me and other SWANA folks down too many times before when it comes to these reboots and sequels, and we collectively should do better to move past IP and let new and less problematic stories thrive. I’ll enjoy Cronin’s film that starred Egyptians from jump and continue supporting Egyptian directors, writers, and actors, as well as other SWANA creators making great stories and entertainment. I just hope that those who rejoiced for this Mummy sequel show as much support for them too, and help us collectively move past Orientalist relics and their nostalgic grip.