With The Mummy 4 currently shooting ahead of its October 15, 2027 release date, Oded Fehr, who reprises his role Ardeth Bay, joked that there were only two The Mummy movies released.
During a joint interview with John Hannah, who returns as Jonathan Carnahan in The Mummy 4, at Comic Con Holland, Fehr discussed what it feels like to once again play the all-action Ardeth Bay decades later. While talking about the experience, he dismissed the third The Mummy movie, subtitled Tomb of the Dragon Emperor — although Hannah clearly disagreed with the sentiment.
“It’s a very positive thing,” Fehr said of filming the originals. “The Mummy, The Mummy Returns — there wasn’t a third one — but the two movies were so… seriously, it was just fun.”
At this point, Hannah smirked and held three fingers up to the camera. He then mouthed, ‘There was a third movie.”
“No, there were two,” Fehr continued. “But, it’s a disagreement.”
While it looks like a bit of harmless banter between co-stars, Fehr’s comment taps into the sentiment around the franchise going into The Mummy 4, which will see Brendan Fraser reprising his iconic role as Rick O’Connell alongside Rachel Weisz as Evelyn O’Connell.
Weisz didn’t appear in the divisive third entry (Maria Bello played the character instead), and many fans feel The Mummy 3 suffered as a result. Some fans have discounted it entirely, suggesting the events of The Mummy 3 shouldn’t be considered canon. In March, The Mummy 4 director duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett appeared to back that feeling up.
“Well, Rachel is in this one,” Bettinelli-Olpin said when asked by Entertainment Weekly for a ruling on whether they considered Tomb of the Dragon Emperor to be canon.
“That should answer the question for you,” Gillett then confirmed.
Oded Fehr didn’t feature in The Mummy 3, either, so you can perhaps understand his feelings on it. Hannah, though, appeared in all three The Mummy movies, which is perhaps why he defended The Mummy 3 in the interview.
There’s still much we don’t know about The Mummy 4 — even its final title is unannounced. But set photos have shown both Fraser and Weisz in character, in a setting that looks like 1950s post-war Britain.
Photo by Frank Trapper/Corbis via Getty Images.