Have you ever wonder the possibility where The Mummy who used to scare you was a transgender?
With the release of every movie, TV series, and comic comes speculations about what could have been. Making fan- theories is the favorite pass time for nerds and they are quite good at it too. Who would win if Iron Man and Batman faced- off? What if Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive mosquito instead of a radioactive spider? What if Wolverine was a shy person instead of a headstrong jerk? You name it and the nerds have thought about it before. Similarly, the celebrity story writers and directors too wonder what their projects could have been if they went along with a different idea. One such speculation is a transgender mummy by Clive Barker.
The Mummy’s Past
The Mummy is a horror- adventure media franchise that is based on the films by Universal Pictures about a mummified ancient Egyptian priest who is accidentally resurrected, bringing him a powerful curse, and the struggle of a heroic archaeologist to stop him. It was created by Nina Wilcox Putnam and Richard Schayer. The franchise has existed for a long time and has a lot of movies. The Stephen Sommers series has 3 movies released between 1999 and 2008 which also inspired The Scorpion King spin-off series and the Dark universe contains 1 movie released in 2017 starring the one and only Tom Cruise.
Clive Barker Reveals Another Possibility
The famous novelist, film director, and visual artist Clive Barker (His popular works include Hellraiser, the horrifying supernatural horror film.) was in an interview with the Post Mortem with Mick Garris podcast where he revealed a very amusing take on The Mummy that he considered a while back. Apparently, he was working on a script for his vision of the Mummy that featured a great twist. According to the script, the story would have been set in Beverly Hills and revolved around the story of a modern art museum that was secretly a cult hellbent on resurrecting ancient Egyptian Mummies. The twist that he was considering was that their resurrected mummy would be a transgender one.
“It had the first gender change- transsexual… so we were ahead of the curve. So, there’s a boy born… a boy-child born at the beginning of the narrative, who is obviously significant in the narrative… but we cut twenty years and there’s no sign of this guy. Apparently. There is a wonderfully strange, mysterious woman who is part of the narrative, a very important part of the narrative. I don’t want to say too much because we’re gonna make this one day… I hope… we should talk to Netflix.” he explained. Going further with the plot’s explanation, he stated “The little boy… who is born at the beginning of the narrative… has become this exquisite woman. And a major part of a modern-day narrative about The Mummy. But this is our naivete, Mick.
How could we ever have thought, in 1989, when we turned this in, that they would say, ‘Ah, great!’ I think I’ve had a slightly naïve attitude [towards] the suits.” It sounds interesting but for the time it was initially made for, it might have been too much. As he stated, Clive still believes in his work and still hasn’t given up hopes for a live-action adaptation. Considering all the masterpieces that Clive’s mind has given us over the years, the excitement for an adaptation is most definitely high!
