The news that Lee Cronin’s The Mummy failed to set the box office alight in its opening weekend is a surprisingly good omen for The Mummy franchise’s future, and Brendan Fraser’s upcoming reboot The Mummy 4 specifically. The Mummy franchise has been around for a long time, with its first movie, 1932’s original The Mummy, arriving back in 1932. This classic Universal hit spawned numerous sequels, including 1940’s The Mummy’s Hand, 1942’s The Mummy’s Tomb, and 1955’s comedic spinoff Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. Hammer’s 1959 release The Mummy marked the franchise’s first reboot.
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In 1999, The Mummy was rebooted as a blockbuster Brendan Fraser fantasy vehicle that blended comedy, action, and adventure elements with the horror of earlier installments. Director Stephen Sommers’ approach was a hit, spawning two sequels and a five-film prequel series in The Scorpion King movies. Like the titular artefact, the franchise then lay dormant until 2026’s Blumhouse reboot Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. An R-rated exercise in gory horror, this reboot strayed far from the lighter, action-heavy antics of the Fraser series. Luckily for Fraser’s upcoming The Mummy reboot, this doesn’t appear to have paid off.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’s Box Office Proves Brendan Fraser’s Franchise Reboot Makes More Sense
While Lee Cronin’s The Mummy earning $13 million at the box office on its opening weekend wasn’t terrible by any means, finishing third after Project Hail Mary and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie does prove that the reboot was far from a decisive hit. If anything, this modest box office disappointment proves the R-rating of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, and the movie’s attendant focus on the franchise’s horror roots, wasn’t an ingenious change after all.
Throughout the 2020s, various filmmakers have attempted to revive interest in the classic Universal monsters with dark, R-rated reboots focused on them. 2020’s The Invisible Man was an early success story for this approach, winning over critics and audiences alike upon release. However, 2025’s Wolf Man proved that the formula was far from reliable, and Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is a second casualty to this divisive approach. While it is nowhere near as big a failure as 2017’s disastrous The Mummy reboot, the horror does seemingly prove that The Mummy movies of the later 90s and 00s had the right idea.
The Mummy Franchise Never Needed An R-Rating
At its heart, The Mummy franchise has never been a hardcore horror series, which is a big part of why the Stephen Sommers movies are so fondly remembered. More akin to an Indiana Jones spinoff than part of the Evil Dead universe, both the early Mummy movies of the 30s and 50s and their tongue-in-cheek ‘90s reboots are more concerned with fun action set-pieces than jaw-dropping gore and genuinely terrifying suspense.
This is all great news for the upcoming reboot The Mummy 4, set to be released in May 2028. Original series stars Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz will reprise their roles in this belated sequel, along with supporting star John Hannah, and the directing duo Radio Silence are set to helm the followup. Although directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpi and Tyler Gillett are best known for their work on R-rated horrors like 2022’s Scream and the Ready or Not movies, the mixed reception of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy should prompt the pair to prioritize The Mummy franchise’s sense of fun over horror in The Mummy 4.
