Hollywood is no stranger to the “twin movie” phenomenon, which is when different studios coincidentally release very similar films close to each other. Notable examples from the past include The Prestige and The Illusionist, Deep Impact and Armageddon, and Finding Nemo and Shark Tale. The concept is about to be taken to the extreme with twin Mummy movies. As Lee Cronin’s The Mummy gears up for its release on April 17th, a fourth installment in the Brendan Fraser Mummy franchise is being developed and has secured a 2028 premiere. This year’s Mummy film is standing apart by fully embracing an R-rated body horror premise that doesn’t shy away from depicting intense gore.
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In an interview with ComicBook to promote The Mummy, Cronin discussed whether or not there was a specific moment where the creative team knew they could push the levels of gore to its absolute limits. “Well, I think that anything that was relating to the removal of skin in the movie felt like something I really needed to go hard on because it’s a big part of the central mystery to the story as well,” he said. “So there was never any hold back, certainly in the research and development, and then the implementation on set of how we would remove skin from a particular character. So there was definitely no holdback there, specifically relating to a toenail sequence as well. That wasn’t something that I wanted to shy away from … I like to show you things, but as soon as I’ve shown them to you, I’ll go somewhere else and have another experience. It’s like, ‘What did I see? Wait, wait, wait,’ and we bring you somewhere else. I’m always trying to refresh the experience as much as I can.”
Embracing Gore Is a Smart Approach for Lee Cronin’s The Mummy
Blumhouse, one of the production companies behind Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, is well aware of Brendan Fraser’s association with the franchise. The studio’s social media account went viral for a bit where it was posting “BRENDAN FRASER IS NOT IN LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY” on a daily basis. While humorous, this highlighted one of the biggest challenges facing Cronin’s film. The Mummy is historically known as one of the classic Universal Monsters, but the Fraser-led series reimagined the IP as a globetrotting action/adventure franchise in the vein of Indiana Jones. Especially as Fraser himself has enjoyed a career renaissance in recent years, he is synonymous with the Mummy brand.
As a result, casual moviegoers were probably wondering if Cronin’s film features Fraser in some capacity. Smartly, the studio has been getting ahead of that to clearly communicate Fraser is not in the film, and the marketing materials have highlighted how this is a wildly different take on the Mummy concept. If Cronin’s movie was too similar in style and approach to the Fraser series, people would be wondering what the point is. Instead, Cronin’s film is illustrating how two separate Mummy series can coexist simultaneously. While The Mummy 4 will look to entertain with another sweeping adventure, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is setting out to terrify audiences with a chilling horror story. They’re disparate takes with their own target demographics.
It’s important for Lee Cronin’s The Mummy to carve out its own identity because it could be the start of a new series. Elsewhere in our interview, Cronin addressed the possibility of a follow-up. While he admitted the top priority was “putting your best foot forward, putting a great movie out there, and then seeing what audiences think of that,” he did say that he’s “always thinking” about what could come next, especially as he writes new scenes on set. It sounds like the creative team is waiting to see the response to the film before deciding on a sequel, which is wise. There have been instances of studios counting chickens before they hatch (see: the failed Dark Universe franchise), so it’s better to make sure the movie being released is as strong as it can be.
Turning the gore up to 11 and making skin removal an integral component of the plot is definitely a way to make your film stand out. If Lee Cronin’s The Mummy lives up to the potential being teased in the trailers, it could become the next big horror hit. Throughout his career, Cronin has demonstrated a knack for making compelling horror movies (The Hole in the Ground, Evil Dead Rise), so he should bring something unique to the table with his version of The Mummy. Based on everything we’ve seen so far, horror fans should be in for a treat.
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