Director Shawn Levy is returning to his popular Night at the Museum franchise for a ‘reimagining’ of the original, but will the audience be there when it hits theaters?

The Hollywood press reported Wednesday that 21 Laps, the production company Levy owns with Dan Levine and Dan Cohen, has begun development on a new iteration of the high-grossing film series that starred Ben Stiller as a museum guard who discovers that the exhibits come to life at night. The original, which was released in 2006, also starred the late Robin Williams as the living embodiment of a Teddy Roosevelt mannequin.

Night at the Museum was followed by Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian  in 2009 and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb which came out in 2014. An animated feature, Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again was released on Disney+ in 2022. All three live-action films, which took in a combined $540 million plus at the domestic box office, were directed by Levy.

The new movie will be directed by Tripper Clancy (Die Hart, Stuber) and Levy and Dan Levine will produce for 21 Laps. No plot or casting information is known at this time.

Though the franchise was one of the more popular of the 21st century, reaction to the new film on social media seems a bit mixed. Reboots in general elicit calls for Hollywood to come up with more original stories, and the thought of the film without Ben Stiller was not met with enthusiasm.

On BlueSky, one poster wrote, “Pity. At least bring Stiller back,” which was met with the response, “I would for at least a cameo, if he doesn’t then its a waste.” Another respondent said, “When Hollywood circles back to this, you know they out of ideas.”

Over on Threads, the lack of Robin Williams seemed distressing to some, but one person seemed hopeful the new movie might be more faithful to the book the series is based on, The Night at the Museum by Milan Trenc, published in 1993.

As a whole, though, social media didn’t seem overwhelmingly interested – whether for or against – the idea of the project, so only time will tell if a new film has what it takes to fill theaters – or streaming queues.