Yet, even the most recent one doesn't get audiences all the way there. Though hints have been dropped, particularly in The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption, about where Mathayus is destined to end up, the franchise has been taking its sweet time getting there, with little movement on the "now he's on a mission to conquer the world" front. Instead, it treats his arc like its Zeno's arrow, dividing the time remaining with the character into smaller and smaller segments in such a way that he may never reach his endpoint. Dwayne Johnson has conquered the world in less time than Mathayus.
And it seems like he may finally have run out of opportunities, at least for now. In November 2020, Deadline Hollywood reported that Johnson and his production company Seven Bucks Productions were moving forward with a rebooted take on the franchise, with Jonathan Herman, the writer of Straight Outta Compton, set to tackle the screenplay. While Johnson's busy schedule will preclude him from starring, the announcement made it clear he still feels a connection to the character that kicked everything off.
Most interesting of all is that the film will reportedly eschew its predecessors' sword-and-sandals, Egyptian prehistory roots in favor of bringing the character to modern times. What that will look like is anyone's guess at this point. Maybe it will prove to be just the break the character needs.
