The Mummy Trilogy Is Finally Returning to Streaming

Fans of Brendan Fraser’s The Mummy series are now less than a week away from being able to stream them for free, for the first time in quite a while. The movies, which are owned by NBC Universal, are headed to the studio’s in-house streaming app, Peacock, beginning on August 1. The streamer will have all three The Mummy movies made during Fraser’s run, as well as The Scorpion King, a spinoff that starred Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Recently, The Mummy Returns got some attention from the internet as the movie’s visual effects coordinator addressed a moment form the film that is often called one of the worst VFX shots of all time.

The movies coming to Peacock on August 1 are The Mummy (originally released in 1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), its spinoff The Scorpion King (2002), and Fraser’s final installment, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which was released in 2008. In recent years, the franchise — as well as Fraser, who now appears in Doom Patrol and is set to play the villain in Batgirl next year for HBO Max — has received a more compassionate re-appraisal, with high profile YouTubers like Nerdstalgic and The Critical Drinker doing long-form essays about why the series (but especially the first installment) are underappreciated gems.

The first two movies were colossal hits, and The Scorpion King was a big deal in its own right, serving a key role in Johnson’s transition from WWE superstar to Hollywood icon. And underlying it all was that playful energy that makes the movie feel like a big-budget version of something that came straight out of another era.

“Just gotta say, I know how hard it is to make that movie,” Fraser said in 2019, not long after a Tom Cruise-led reboot of the franchise failed to connect with audiences. “I tried to do it three times, and the essential ingredient is fun. You gotta remember to have fun. So if there’s a fun way to approach it again, I’m all in.”

By the time the third Mummy film came around, the damage Fraser did to his body through years of stunts, pratfalls, and Hollywood diets had begun to take its toll, and his character was largely sidelined in favor of younger actors who could still hurl themselves at green-screen monsters. Still, in spite of lukewarm reception from fans and critics, the movie managed to top $400 at the global box office in the days before Marvel movies made $1 billion the benchmark any expensive tentpole needed to hit.

You can see all four Mummy movies on Peacock (we won’t mention the Scorpion King sequels) beginning on August 1.