It is a remake of the 1932 film of the same name, starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Kevin J.
The film is the lowest rated of the trilogy, with an abysmal 12 critic score on Rotten. The Mummy is a 1999 American action-adventure film written and directed by Stephen Sommers. When pressed on this connection specifically, Kurtzman seemed to make the decision right then and there, that, yes, the previous Mummy films are part of the Dark Universe. To say 'The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor' suffered without Rachel Weisz would be an understatement.
As we've previously written, the new Mummy movie contains an easter egg reference to the 1999 film, which would seem to imply that the two films are taking place within the same fictional world. The first Mummy movie of the trilogy was undoubtedly a triumph. The same apparently holds true for later films like the Mummy trilogy that starred Brendan Fraser. The Mummy - what images that conjures up - Boris Karloff staggering around wreathed in bandages, Brendan Fraser’s mighty thighs in action - well, sorry, Boris, Brendan gets the revisit. Based on what Alex Kurtzman is telling Digital Spy here, he sounds like he views all of the classic monster movies as still having taken place, but decades have passed and this is now what is happening with these characters now. All movie sets experience the odd injury here and there. Do yourself a favor and join Rick O'Connell, Ardeth Bay, Evelyn & Jonathan on their adventures. Quite often they had the same actors portraying the same characters across multiple films, including crossovers with other monsters. By the time The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor premiered in 2008, the star of The Mummy trilogy, Brendan Fraser, was essentially a mummy himself, put together by tape and bandages. In essence, if you love classic adventure stories, enjoy compelling narrative with dynamic 3-dimensional characters, and BRENDAN FREAKING FRASER, then The Mummy & The Mummy Returns (Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is optional) is an obvious choice. While Marvel is the studio credited with creating the cinematic shared universe concept with their superhero movies, the fact is that Universal actually did this back in the day with their monster characters like Dracula and Frankenstein's monster. So, all of those films are part of the history of the Universal monsters, and as such I thought, rather than say it's not part of the canon, let's say, 'No, it is part of the canon we're just taking it somewhere new.'