It’s been a little while since we last heard about Universal Pictures’ big plans for its inter-connected monster universe—which is understandable given that they've been busy breaking box office records—but things are moving full speed ahead on the first in a planned series of monster reboots, The Mummy. However, when the classic ghoul returns to cinemas, there may be one major twist that sets it apart from previous iterations: a female monster.

Per THR, the gender of the titular monster in director Alex Kurtzman’s modern day reboot is up in the air, and will depend on casting. Basically, Kurtzman and writer Jon Spaihts’ (Prometheus) script has two story options: one in which the mummy is male, and one in which it is female. As the casting process begins over the next few months, they’ll make a final decision based on the actors considered for the part.


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Image via Universal

This is actually a promising bit of thinking, and goes back to what George Clooney was saying a few months ago about gender-swapping roles in Hollywood: if more people simply took the lead character and changed the gender, there would be more interesting opportunities for women. In the end, it doesn’t really matter if The Mummy is male or female, just that the story is good and the character is complex.

Kurtzman is poised to make The Mummy his second directorial effort after the little-seen dramedy Welcome to People, and he’s spearheading Universal’s monster universe alongside Fast & Furious scribe Chris Morgan. We don’t yet know exactly which monsters will follow in what order, but Dracula, Wolfman, the Invisible Man, the Bride of Frankenstein, and Van Helsing are all on the table.

I’m still not entirely onboard with a modern day Mummy reboot, but I’m curious to see what Kurtzman cooks up—especially if they go with a female lead. The monster has traditionally been male, with Boris Karloff filling the iconic role in the 1939 original and Arnold Vosloo picking up the torch in the very entertaining 1999 reboot. What do you think, readers? Who should play the new Mummy? Sound off in the comments below.

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Image via Universal