Lee Cronin’s The Mummy Could Finally Fix The Franchise’s Worst Sin
It comes to life... again.
Universal took an admirable risk rebooting its universe of classic monsters for the modern day, but it’s not the only studio breathing new life into old haunts. Netflix beat Universal to the punch with a new Frankenstein film, while Warner Bros. has a lock on the Bride of Frankenstein with a Bonnie and Clyde-esque retelling directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Bride, due this year. Warner isn’t stopping there: it’s also teaming with Blumhouse, a frequent Universal collaborator, to reboot The Mummy.
Not to be confused with the new Mummy sequel Universal has planned, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy will tell a much darker origin story, nixing the swashbuckling adventure of the Brendan Fraser-led films to double down on skin-tingling horror. Cronin is the director behind Evil Dead Rise, so we should expect his take on the Mummy franchise to be just as unsettling and grotesque. Despite its supernatural subject matter, this film already feels more tangible and real than the Mummies that came before. Cronin is drawing from a very different well, but that might just fix one of the biggest issues with this franchise.
Per the official synopsis, Cronin’s Mummy follows the story of a journalist (Jack Reynor) whose young daughter (Natalie Grace) disappears in the desert. When her mummified body is recovered eight years later, and it miraculously reanimates, “what should be a joyful reunion turns into a living nightmare.”
It’s a clever premise in that it’s such a departure from the original Mummy starring Boris Karloff. Unlike Frankenstein or Dracula, The Mummy wasn’t based on a novel, but an amalgamation of Egypt-set legends. It took major liberties with the supposed Curse of King Tut, a story that fascinated the public in the 1930s, to tell the tale of an Egyptian high priest who comes to life in the modern day, only to abuse his power to revive his long-lost love.
That story has informed every Mummy film since, from the ‘90s adventure films to the ill-fated 2017 reboot starring Tom Cruise. Naturally, it doesn’t really do its due diligence with Egyptian culture, though it gestures to their deities and practices to fake a kind of authenticity. While entertaining enough, there’s always been a sense of untapped potential — or, at worst, straight-up Orientalism — holding the franchise back.
Lee Cronin is leaving the fantastical stories of older Mummy films behind.
Cronin, on the other hand, seems genuinely interested in exploring the lesser-known aspects of ancient Egyptian life, including the how and why of mummification. “The authenticity does matter to me,” the director recently told IGN. “One of the things that I’m really proud of with this movie, and with the people involved with the film as well, is that we have a really authentic Egyptian cast and lots of Arabic language.”
The Mummy will also splice that authenticity with a story that feels authentic to Cronin himself: he describes the film as “one part Poltergeist and one part Seven, but put through my lens.” That’s a lot to juggle, but if this near-century-old property wants to survive in the modern day, a jolt of new life might be the only way to do it.
