In a world where everything can (and likely will) be rebooted, it was only a matter of time before The Mummy franchise was chosen for an update. The first Universal Mummy film was released in 1932 and starred Boris Karloff as the title character. More recently in 1999, Brendan Fraser fought off Arnold Vosloo as the Mummy. Because of its success, it spawned sequels and a spin-off starring The Rock as the Scorpion King. This time around, Tom Cruise is set to take on a Mummy in the form of Sofia Boutella as Princess Ahmanet. The first trailer is here and it not only gives us our first look at this new take on the classic story, but it’s also our first entry into the larger Universal Monsters shared universe (more on that later).
The tone of the Mummy trailer starts off very tense. This movie should be more of a horror film, the precedent set by Karloff, but with the Fraser reboot, it was turned into an action-adventure fantasy hybrid. After seeing the trailer, however, this movie looks enormous. It feels like a cross between Mission Impossible and The Mummy. There’s a lot of intense moments and a lot of huge action scenes where London is in serious jeopardy from the Mummy’s attack.
As for the shared Universal Monsters universe, you can clearly see Russell Crowe in the trailer. He’s set to play Dr. Henry Jekyll and will likely appear in a few of the upcoming films. So far we know Javier Bardem will be playing Frankenstein’s monster, and Johnny Depp will be the Invisible Man. Other films announced were Wolf Man, Van Helsing, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Bride of Frankenstein. Exciting times for fans of the original Universal Monster movies.
The Mummy will be released on June 9th, 2017 and stars Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance, and Russell Crowe.
