Following the massive financial success of 2023’s Evil Dead Rise, director Lee Cronin has been tapped to write and direct a new take on the Universal Monster classic The Mummy. Cronin is developing the film with Blumhouse Productions and James Wan’s Atomic Monster and, while no official story details have been released, the project is expected to be a fresh take on the terrifying concept. The release of Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man next month will help showcase how invested audiences are in new takes on classic monsters, so if that succeeds, The Mummy could merely be one of many reboots on the way. Cronin’s The Mummy is set to hit theaters on April 17, 2026.
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“This will be unlike any Mummy movie you ever laid eyeballs on before. I’m digging deep into the earth to raise something very ancient and very frightening,” Cronin shared in a statement.
Blumhouse also shared a Reel on Instagram teasing the film, though the post didn’t offer any additional clues about the experience.
The history of the cinematic versions of The Mummy, and it’s different incarnations, will spark endless speculation among fans about the tone that Cronin will aim to explore.
[RELATED – Wolf Man Director Reveals Why He Wants to Make a Third Universal Monsters Reboot]
The original The Mummy starred Boris Karloff and, like many other Universal Pictures offerings at the time, was a slow and spooky effort that earned multiple sequels up through the ’50s. In 1999, Brendan Fraser starred in a new take on the concept, which abandoned the horror elements to lean into swashbuckling and adventure tones. This formula proved to be a hit, with the film becoming a box-office success that earned two sequels of its own.
In 2017, Universal Pictures attempted to reboot its Universal Monsters with its Dark Universe, the first entry of which was the Tom Cruise-starring The Mummy. With the film attempting to deliver both the action and adventure of the 1999 movie as well as the creepier origins of the franchise, the film ended up falling short of expectations with audiences and critics alike, resulting in the Dark Universe never earning another installment.
Luckily, Leigh Whannell delivered audiences The Invisible Man in 2020, which channeled the spirit of the source material while also reimagining it in compelling ways, becoming a hit with audiences. This resulted in the announcements of a handful of other Universal Monsters projects, though the coronavirus pandemic and last year’s writers’ and actors’ strikes delayed the development of those projects.
As fans wait for more updates on The Mummy before it hits theaters on April 17, 2026, they can see Wolf Man on January 17, 2025.
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