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‘the mummy’ director on the ending’s terrifying evolution.

Alex Kurtzman gives clues as to what's going on after the credits role.

By Aaron Couch

Aaron Couch

Film Editor

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'The Mummy' Ending: Tom Cruise Movie Transformation, Sequel Explained

[Warning: This story contains spoilers for Universal’s The Mummy . ]

With The Mummy , Tom Cruise takes on his biggest onscreen transformation yet.

The final moments of the Universal film tease a very different type of character for Cruise to sink his teeth into going forward, should he return in titles in the Dark Universe, the shared universe the studio is launching with this movie.

Cruise’s Nick Morton sacrifices himself in order to defeat the Mummy (Sofia Boutella ) and resurrect Jenny ( Anabelle Wallis). Morton is no longer a man, but has truly become a monster, with his face wrapped in bandages, apparently too horrifying for us to see. Cruise’s deformed face in 2001’s Vanilla Sky or his gray look in 2004’s Collateral caused quite the stir among fans, so it’s safe to say that his monstrous turn, when it’s revealed, could do the same.

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Lacking the campy fun of the franchise's most recent entries and failing to deliver many monster-movie thrills, The Mummy suggests a speedy unraveling for the Dark Universe.

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An ancient Egyptian princess is awakened from her crypt beneath the desert, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia and terrors that defy human comprehension.
Though safely entombed in a crypt deep beneath the unforgiving desert, an ancient princess, whose destiny was unjustly taken from her, is awakened in the current day bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia and terrors that defy human comprehension. — Universal Pictures
Soldier of fortune Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) accidentally discovers the tomb of a female pharaoh of ancient Egypt named Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) during a firefight in the Middle East. But when he and a British Egyptologist (Annabelle Wallis) try to excavate the findings, the resurrected Ahmanet emerges from her sarcophagus with a plot to enslave humanity. — ahmetkozan
Destined to rule all of Egypt, the beautiful princess Ahmanet sees her sacred birthright stolen from her instead when the pharaoh begets an heir. Eternally damned for an unholy pact with the dark Egyptian deity Set, the now-abominable servant of evil must endure an everlasting torment deep into the bowels of Mesopotamia, until opportunistic U.S. Army reconnaissance Sergeant Nick Morton inadvertently sets her free some 5,000 years later. Now, Ahmanet, the all-powerful vessel of destruction, thirsts to fulfill her destiny as tragedy befalls present-day London. Will Nick let the Mummy plunge our world into death and despair? — Nick Riganas
London, 1157 A.D. Crusader knights bury one of their own with a jewel resting in his hands. Jump to the present day where the tombs of many other crusaders are discovered beneath London's catacombs. Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe) enters the tunnels and comes across one particular tomb with hieroglyphs, leading him to realize what this means. Through flashbacks, Jekyll tells the story of Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella). She was a cunning warrior who was ready to succeed her father, the Pharaoh Menehptre (Selva Rasalingam), until his second wife gave birth to a boy. Knowing that the boy would be the Pharaoh's new successor, Ahmanet made a pact with Set, the god of death, to sell her soul for a dark power. Ahmanet murders Menehptre, his wife, and their baby. She prepares to perform a ritual on her lover using a special dagger that would give Set a body of his own, but the Pharaoh's priests stopped Ahmanet and killed her lover. She was mummified alive and had her sarcophagus taken away from Egypt and down a tomb where she could never be found. We move to Mesopotamia (or Iraq) in the present day. U.S. Army Sergeant Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) and his buddy Corporal Chris Vail (Jake Johnson) are reconnaissance soldiers riding toward a village being overrun by insurgents. Nick wants to go down for some adventure while Vail is strongly against it. They go down there anyway and get shot at. Vail orders an airstrike to take the insurgents out. As the bombs are dropped, a hole opens in the ground, nearly sucking Nick and Vail down there. They discover Ahmanet's tomb. The guys' superior, Colonel Greenway (Courtney B. Vance), comes to the site in a helicopter and immediately berates the two for running off and doing their own thing, chasing insurgents. Moments later, an archaeologist named Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) shows up and smacks Nick for stealing a map from her after they shared a night together. After seeing the tomb, Nick, Vail, and Jenny all descend to see what is down there. Jenny notes that there are watcher statues facing inward instead of outward, and there are chains holding the sarcophagus down while submerged in mercury to weaken evil spirits. Nick shoots a chain, causing the sarcophagus to rise from its holdings. He then sees a vision of Ahmanet calling to him, thanking him for freeing her. A bunch of camel spiders begin crawling down from the walls. Vail shoots at them but he gets bitten in the neck, though Nick claims they are not poisonous. They get back to the surface and bring the sarcophagus up. Everyone rides home in a plane. Vail starts to act weird as his skin has turned grey and his eyes look discolored. He tries to cut the sarcophagus free from its holdings. Greenway approaches him to stop him, but Vail stabs him twice, killing Greenway. Vail starts moving toward Nick and the other soldiers, forcing Nick to shoot Vail dead. Nick and Jenny go into the cockpit and see a whole flock of crows flying and crashing through the windshield. The pilots are killed, and the plane starts to go down. Nick gives Jenny a parachute and pulls it so she can get out safely. The plane then crashes with everyone onboard. Nick wakes up in a body bag at a morgue in London. Standing next to him is Vail's ghost, who tells him that they are both cursed. Jenny is asked to identify the bodies of the deceased but is surprised to see Nick alive. At the crash site, rescue workers find the sarcophagus and Ahmanet's corpse. One man approaches it and is caught off-guard as Ahmanet sucks the life out of him and his partner to regenerate her body. She then uses her powers to turn them into reanimated corpse slaves. Nick and Jenny are in a pub. He goes to the bathroom and sees Vail's ghost talking to him again. He warns Nick that Ahmanet has chosen him for a reason. Nick then runs out of the pub and is cornered in an alley by a whole swarm of rats. They crawl all over him as he sees Ahmanet crawling toward him, but he is snapped out of this vision by Jenny. She tells Nick what she learned from reading the hieroglyphs on the sarcophagus. She knows about Set's dagger and the jewel that must join it to complete the ritual. Jenny tells Nick about the jewel being buried with the crusaders there in London. Nick and Jenny go to the crusaders' tombs and they uncover the jewel from the crusader's coffin. As they try to leave, they are trapped by Ahmanet and her undead slaves. Nick and Jenny fight off the undead and escape the tomb. They ride through the woods in a van and are chased by Ahmanet and the undead. An undead slave crashes through the windshield and causes the van to overturn and roll down a hill. Ahmanet tries to get Nick, but she is shot with a hook and is taken down. A whole team of men show up to rescue Nick and Jenny. The two are taken to Prodigium, a facility located beneath the Natural History Museum of London. As Nick walks through the hall, he sees a number of artifacts, including a skull with fangs (Dracula?) and a scaly forearm (Creature from the Black Lagoon??). Nick meets Jekyll, who begins to explain what he knows about Ahmanet and the forces of evil out there. Their facility is dedicated to uncovering dark forces and containing them. Ahmanet is chained up and is subdued with mercury being pumped through her body. Nick approaches her and listens to her talking about the ritual she attempted to perform on her lover. She tries to sway Nick by saying he would have complete control over death and become a living god if he joined her. Nick returns to Jekyll's office with Jenny. Jekyll appears to be undergoing a transformation and tries to prevent it using a serum, but Nick grabs the serum, demanding answers. A Prodigium agent pulls Jenny out but leaves Nick inside. Jekyll then turns into his monstrous alter ego, Edward Hyde. He and Nick fight, with Hyde nearly winning until he gets injected with the serum. Meanwhile, Ahmanet summons a camel spider to crawl into the ear of another agent so that he may break her free from her holds. Ahmanet is loose and she takes the dagger and the jewel. Nick and Jenny flee the facility as Ahmanet begins to unleash a sandstorm upon the city. Nick and Jenny run through the tunnels where they encounter more of Ahmanet's undead slaves. The two fight them again, with Nick crushing or ripping their heads off. They are pushed into the water by an undead but they destroy it. Nick and Jenny swim up for air but Ahmanet grabs Jenny and drags her underwater. Nick fights off more of the undead and tries to save Jenny, but she drowns. Nick pulls her body out of the water and is confronted by Ahmanet. He attempts to smash the jewel until Ahmanet once again tries to persuade him to join her. Nick holds the dagger out as if to give it to her, but he instead stabs himself with it, now becoming possessed by Set. He battles Ahmanet and gives her the kiss of death to suck the life out of her, reducing her back to a corpse. Nick then goes over to Jenny and brings her back to life by screaming at her to wake up. He then disappears. Jenny reunites with Jekyll as Ahmanet's body is placed back into a sarcophagus filled with mercury. Jenny wonders what will happen to Nick now that he is technically a monster. Jekyll muses that it took a monster to defeat a monster, and that there is hope for Nick so long as he retains a shred of his humanity. Somewhere in the desert, Nick has brought Vail back to life. They ride their horses off on another adventure as a sandstorm follows them.

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By now you’ve probably read a number of scathing reviews of “The Mummy,” Universal’s inaugural entry in a possibly grievously ill-advised “Dark Universe” franchise, wherein the legendary studio intends to reboot its most Famous Monsters of Filmland. Perhaps I’m becoming jaded in my old age, but I was more amused than appalled.

Don’t get me wrong. “The Mummy,” directed (if that’s what you want to call it; I honestly think the better term here is “ostensibly overseen on behalf of the studio executives”) by Alex Kurtzman from a script by David Koepp , Christopher McQuarrie , and Dylan Kussman , has plenty to get irritated about. I got sand in my synapses during an early scene in which Tom Cruise , as a looter named Nick Morton (oh, “Mort,” I get it now), and his sidekick, played by Jake Johnson , casually slaughter a bunch of “Iraqi insurgents” trying to track down a mysterious treasure. Oh, sure, filmmakers, by all means use a tragic and unnecessary war that’s still yielding horrific consequences for the world as the backdrop for your stupid horror movie plot machinations, no problem here.

And, of course, there’s the movie’s very old-school sexism. "The Mummy" has two female characters: One is corrupt albeit not unattractive ancient Egyptian royal Ahmanet, who, once freed from her tomb in the present day, is the incarnation of all evil and stuff. (She is played by Sofia Boutella , whose filmography testifies that she’s accustomed to being ill-used in motion pictures). The other is faux-archeologist/genuine anti-evil secret agent Jenny ( Annabelle Wallis ) who’s mainly around to be rescued by Nick, and whose surface venality suggests that his business card describes him as a “lovable rogue.”

So yes, should one choose to take offense, one certainly may. But I have to be honest—speaking of venality, I found something almost admirable about the film’s cheek. It’s amazingly relentless in its naked borrowing from other, better horror and sci-fi movies that I was able to keep occupied making a checklist of the movies referenced. At its opening, remnants of a past civilization are discovered while workmen are tunneling underground for a new subway route. That’s from “Quatermass and the Pit,” aka “Five Million Miles to Earth.” As many other reviewers have noted, once Jake Johnson’s character buys in and is reborn as a wisecracking undead sidekick warning Nick about how he’s been cursed by incarnation-of-evil Ahmanet, it’s “American Werewolf in London” time, albeit with PG-13-rated special effects rather than the side of ketchup-dipped corned beef that fell from Griffin Dunne ’s face in the earlier movie. What else? A woman whose kiss drains the life force out of those who receive it, from the wacky space-vampire movie “Lifeforce”? Check. A brain-draining insect in the ear from “Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan”? Check. Spavined slapstick undead assaulters out of “ Evil Dead ”? Check. Underwater fights with the undead out of Lucio Fulci ’s “Zombie”? Check. (These too are toned down considerably from the source material.) Someone saying “Plans?” with the precise intonation Sir Ralph Richardson used in “ Tales from the Crypt ”? Also check. Don’t even get me started on the, um, appropriation of a famous line from the Universal monster movie “ Bride of Frankenstein .” But that’s life, and that movie literally IS Universal’s property.

There have been a lot of crocodile tears already shed about the fact that The Mighty Tom Cruise has allowed himself to be used in such dreck, and also that Russell Crowe has been compelled to continue to sink into a form of self-parody by appearing as the head of Jenny’s anti-evil agency, a character named Dr. Henry Jekyll, and yeah, it’s the same guy. Or some iteration of the same guy. As it happens, Dr. Jekyll was never one of the Universal Studios monsters, but the character IS in the public domain, so I guess the corporate overlords of the Dark Universe figured “what the you-know-what.”

Anyway, I cannot feel too aggrieved for either star. As Richard Harris and Richard Burton found out for themselves many years before Crowe came along, there comes a time in the career of every loose-cannon macho actor where the any-port-in-a-financial-year-storm approach to career management is all for the best. As for Cruise, he is known for his try-anything-once sense of cinematic adventure, and he does like his franchises. The Morton character is admittedly more of a callow nothingburger than any he’s played. And given how the movie ends I’m a little disappointed that he wasn’t named Larry Talbot. But who knows, maybe he’ll be obliged to change it for the next installment. Which I am looking forward to, out of nothing but base curiosity.

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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The Mummy (2017)

Rated PG-13 for violence, action and scary images, and for some suggestive content and partial nudity.

110 minutes

Tom Cruise as Nick Morton

Sofia Boutella as Princess Ahmanet / The Mummy

Annabelle Wallis as Jenny Halsey

Jake Johnson as Sgt. Vail

Courtney B. Vance as Colonel Gideon Forster

Russell Crowe as Dr. Henry Jekyll

Alex Kurtzman

Writer (screen story by)

Jon Spaihts
Jenny Lumet
David Koepp
Christopher McQuarrie
Dylan Kussman

Cinematographer

Ben Seresin
Paul Hirsch
Gina Hirsch
Andrew Mondshein

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Sofia Boutella as released sorceress Ahmanet in The Mummy.

The Mummy review – Tom Cruise returns in poorly bandaged corpse reviver

Framed as more of a superhero origin movie than ancient curse mystery, a messy plot unravels fast

B e afraid, for here it is … again … emerging waxily from the darkness. This disturbing figure must surely be thousands of years old by now, a princeling worshipped as a god but entombed in his own riches and status; remarkably well preserved. It is Tom Cruise, who is back to launch a big summer reboot of The Mummy, that classic chiller about the revived corpse from ancient Egypt, from which the tomb door was last prised off in a trilogy of films between 1999 and 2008 with the lantern-jawed and rather forgotten Brendan Fraser in the lead. And before that, of course, there were classic versions with Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee both variously getting the all-over St John Ambulance treatment.

Traditionally, The Mummy is a scary movie (though unserious) about taboo and transgression, based on the made-up pop myth about the mummy’s “curse” – which has no basis in the history of ancient Egypt, but is a cheeky colonialist invention, which recasts local objection to our tomb-looting as something supernatural, malign and irrational.

Yet that is not what this Mummy is about. It brings in the usual element of sub-Spielberg gung-ho capers, but essentially sees The Mummy as a superhero origin movie; or possibly supervillain; or Batmanishly both. The supporting characters are clearly there to be brought back as superhero-repertory characters for any putative Mummy franchise, including one who may well be inspired by Two-Face from The Dark Knight.

This has some nice moments but is basically a mess, with various borrowings, including some mummified bits from An American Werewolf in London. The plot sags like an aeon-old decaying limb: a jumble of ideas and scenes from what look like different screenplay drafts. There are two separate ancient “tomb-sites” which have to be busted open: one in London and one in Iraq. (The London one, on the site of the Crossrail excavation, contains the remains of medieval knights identified as “crusaders” who have in their dead Brit mitts various strategically important jewels they have taken from Egyptians: who were subsequently buried in what is now Iraq. Erm, Egyptians in Iraq? Go figure. Perhaps it’s because they are evil and had to be taken out of the country, like CIA rendition of terror suspects.)

The Cruisemeister himself is left high and dry by plot lurches that trigger his boggle-eyed, WTF expression. In one scene, he is nude so we can see what undeniably great shape he’s in. The flabby, shapeless film itself doesn’t have his muscle-tone.

Midair acrobatics … Tom Cruise and Annabelle Wallis in The Mummy.

Cruise plays Nick Morton, an adorable rascal in the Iraqi warzone who goes around in a TE Lawrence headdress stealing antiquities to sell; well, it’s that or let them be destroyed. He’s helped by his exasperated buddy Chris (Jake Johnson), while Nick has already seduced beautiful expert Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) who in spite of herself is entranced by Nick’s distinctive cherubic handsomeness. Then they blunder across the extraordinary tomb of evil Egyptian sorceress Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) who has some kind of weirdo mind-meld experience with Nick. Her creepy spirit accompanies him back home where she is intent on getting that precious jewel to unlock her full power. Nick’s plane crashes, giving him the opportunity for some Mission: Impossible-type midair acrobatics, those gorgeous chops pulling some serious Gs.

Russell Crowe lumbers on at one stage, amply filling a three-piece suit, playing an archaeological expert and connoisseur of secret burial sites, who has some sinister connection with government agencies. Unlike Nick, he has no Indiana Jones-type heroism, and that formal attire of his signals that he does not have Nick’s kind of heroic looseness. He is a figure to be mistrusted, although when he reveals his name and his destiny, he is just a distraction – and silly.

In the end, having encouraged us to cheer for Tom Cruise as an all-around hero , the film tries to have it both ways and confer upon him some of the sepulchral glamour of evil, and he almost has something Lestat -ish or vampiric about him. Yet the film really won’t make up its mind. It’s a ragbag of action scenes which needed to be bandaged more tightly.

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What Exactly Happened To Tom Cruise's Nick Morton In The Mummy?

Universal had big plans for "The Mummy," with the reboot set to ignite their cinematic universe, the Dark Universe, bringing many iconic monsters together on-screen. While Tom Cruise's Nick Morton would have played a significant role moving forward, a disappointing box-office run ultimately crushed any dreams of a massive franchise, but where did his story end?

"The Mummy" more or less turns Nick Morton's life on its head. In the final battle against Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), he stabs himself with the Dagger of Set, allowing the ancient Egyptian god to possess his body. He eventually overpowers Set, regaining control of his body, and uses the god's power to kill Ahmanet and resurrect his friends. As the movie ends, Nick, with Set still inside him, returns to the deserts of Egypt, bringing Chris (Jake Johnson) with him to find a cure for his newly acquired curse.

"The Mummy" leaves Nick's story open-ended, with the former U.S. Army sergeant on the run from Prodigium, a secret agency that hunts the supernatural. While we assume Universal planned to elaborate on this in future films, "The Mummy" killed the Dark Universe before it could even begin, adding it to the list of long-term movie franchises that didn't pan out .

The Mummy doomed the Dark Universe

Needless to say, a lot went wrong with "The Mummy" and Universal's plans to establish the Dark Universe on the big screen, preventing any interested parties from seeing Nick Morton's (Tom Cruise) story continue. While the studio clearly bit off more than it could chew, Brendan Fraser, star of the original "The Mummy," believes Universal's approach to the Cruise-led reboot was all wrong from the beginning.

"It is hard to make that movie," he told Variety . "The ingredient that we had going for our 'Mummy,' which I didn't see in that film, was fun. That was what was lacking in that incarnation. It was too much of a straight-ahead horror movie. 'The Mummy' should be a thrill ride, but not terrifying and scary."

Similarly, Alex Kurtzman, director of the 2017 movie, also recognizes the mistakes he and the production made in their attempt to establish the Dark Universe, calling it "the biggest failure of his life" during an appearance on "Bingeworthy." While he's thankful for the opportunity to direct the film, he regrets several decisions, like not trusting a gut feeling he had where something didn't feel right while making "The Mummy." Although the director can't quite place what was wrong, many reviews, like Fraser's and Variety's, pointed out the lack of fun in the movie, which, if correctly implemented, could have played a significant factor in the Dark Universe's fate.

Den of Geek

The Mummy Ending Explained

We unpack what The Mummy ending means for the franchise going forward and where Universal's Dark Universe will go next.

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This article contains The Mummy spoilers .

In those final moments, Tom Cruise more than just rides off into the sunset; he gallops into the horizon, commanding a supernatural sandstorm that licks at his feet with the powers of Hell. Or is that the underworld? It’s a bit ambiguous, yet oh so clear: The Dark Universe has begun!

Of course as we glimpse at the film, the world-building of this nascent shared universe may be occurring with a very different type of Mummy than as advertised. Indeed, the ending of the film confirms what some have long speculated: While the eponymous Mummy of the 2017 film is as evil as sin, the one to carry her evil legacy into the larger Dark Universe is Tom Cruise. Gifted with all the powers of Set, Cruise’s Nick Morton is now all but unstoppable.

So wait, how did we get here again, who is Set, and what happens next?!

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First of all, Set is the god of storms, the desert, chaos, evil, and war. Hence he was not exactly someone ancient Egyptians liked so much as feared. Still he is not actually the Egyptian god of the afterlife or the underworld—that would be Anubis. But The Mummy seems eager to conflate him with Satan, as Russell Crowe’s Henry Jekyll so cheerfully mentions. And either way, Set certainly had Luciferian elements throughout mythology since he is the usurper god who dethroned and murdered his brother Osiris.

In The Mummy , it seems that Sofia Boutella’s Ahmanet made a pact with the evil deity to bring him into our world through a human vessel. And for whatever reason, including perhaps Cruise’s piercing green eyes, she selected the movie star’s Nick for that honor. And the only way to do it is through the human sacrifice method which involved stabbing Nick with a MacGuffin knife adorned with a MacGuffin jewel. The trick worked too. Realizing that like Anubis Set, he would have power over the living and the dead, Nick decided to neither destroy the jewel and save his soul or accept Ahmanet’s embrace. Rather he stabbed himself and took on the powers of Set.

This gave him the ability to take control of Set’s abilities, if only temporarily, and condemn Ahmanet back to death and resurrect his beloved Jenny (Annabelle Wallis) from a watery grave. Now how he was in love with her after a one-night stand and a few intense jogging sessions down London streets is anyone’s guess.

Anyway, Nick thus has the ability to bring back from the dead his best pal Chris (Jake Johnson) and command sandstorms like it’s a Brendan Fraser movie. But what does that mean for the future?

Firstly, The Mummy and Dark Universe at large appear eager to transform their monsters from dangerous creatures to lovable anti-heroes. To be fair, many of the monsters are quite sympathetic in the original canon, including the Phantom of the Opera, Quasimodo, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and most especially Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein’s Monster and Lon Chaney Jr.’s the Wolf Man. But the Mummy never really was one of them. Like Dracula, he was just kind of a bastard, even if he did it all for the love of the woman in his life.

Making said Mummy an actual woman in this film seemed like a novel idea, but the Dark Universe pretty quickly dethrones her own wickedness and replaces it with a heroic kind. Given Javier Bardem’s Monster and likely the Bride of Frankenstein to come will also be sympathetic, as will the Wolfman if they ever get around to him, it’s conceivable that this universe will culminate in an Avengers -esque superhero team. And I’d be willing to bet Dracula would be the big bad of the whole story.

But to get there, it is curious to see where they go next. With Tom Cruise now essentially commanding all the powers of the Mummy—and it left open-ended whether they’ll permanently damage his good looks with makeup—one piece of the puzzle is complete. The next one in the saga will be The Bride of Frankenstein , which is due out on Feb. 14, 2019. Just in time for Valentine’s Day.

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No matter how The Mummy is received, we believe this one will end up getting made, if for no other reason than the Bride is a beloved character in pop culture that could be sold from a whole different vantage. Unlike Alex Kurtzman being hired to build a universe into a mummified wrapping, director Bill Condon has a long history with Bride . After all, he won an Oscar for his screenplay in Gods and Monsters (1998). Ironically enough, that movie also starred Brendan Fraser, but perhaps more importantly it also featured Ian McKellen in one of his finest roles that also got him an Oscar nod.

McKellen played James Whale, one of Hollywood’s earliest auteurs, a World War I veteran, and an openly gay man living defiantly in the early 20th century. He also made some of horror’s cornerstone films: Frankenstein (1931), The Invisible Man (1933), and Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

Obviously a project close to Condon’s heart, the director has reason to strive for something special. The film also is off to a fine start with the casting of Javier Bardem as the Monster. Presumably since this is Universal, he’ll even get to don the flattop. The Creature’s Mate is meanwhile left uncast, but it’s no secret that Universal has long sought Angelina Jolie for the role. That seems still plausible given the studio’s desire to get more distinguished and big-name movie stars. However, if we could make a suggestion, Eva Green seems born to play the role.

Universal also has slated release dates for unspecified films on Aug. 16, 2019 and April 17, 2020, but these notably are not listed as monster movies. Maybe they’re something else (maybe that Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham Fast and Furious spinoff?), or just maybe the studio is waiting to see how The Mummy is received.

The studio certainly has its plans in place. Johnny Depp is expected to eventually play the Invisible Man, who is also not one of the studio’s most sympathetic fiends, but that can be rectified with some rewriting. They also have in apparently active development projects built around Dracula, The Wolfman, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Phantom of the Opera , and The Hunchback of Notre Dame .

It’ll be curious to see if any of these movies actually are quickened to life. Then again, I still suspect Dracula is the universe’s ultimate big bad, so if that means we get a movie of him allowed to be a monster again, as opposed to a bleeding heart tragic hero, that could actually be a bonus .

David Crow | @DCrowsNest

David Crow is the movies editor at Den of Geek. He has long been proud of his geek credentials. Raised on cinema classics that ranged from…

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Review: ‘The Mummy,’ With Tom Cruise, Deserves a Quick Burial

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By A.O. Scott

June 7, 2017

You’ve no doubt been told that if you can’t say something nice, you shouldn’t say anything at all. If I followed that rule, I’d be unemployed. But still. There’s no great joy in accentuating the negative. So I will say this in favor of “The Mummy”: It is 110 minutes long. That is about 20 minutes shorter than “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” about which I had some unkind things to say a couple of weeks ago. Simple math will tell you how much better this movie is than that one. If you have no choice but to see it — a circumstance I have trouble imagining — you can start in on your drinking that much sooner.

“The Mummy” begins with a supposed Egyptian proverb to the effect that “we” never really die; “we” assume new forms and keep right on living. I’m not an Egyptologist, but it seems just as likely that those words were lifted from a movie-studio strategy memo. Universal, lacking a mighty superhero franchise, has gone into its intellectual-property files, which are full of venerable monsters, and created a commercial agglomeration it calls the Dark Universe . “The Mummy” is the first of a slew — a swarm? a pestilence? — of features reviving those old creatures, including the one from the Black Lagoon. We can also look forward to new visits from Frankenstein’s monster and his bride, the Wolf Man and the Invisible Man, among others.

It sounds like fun. The “Mummy” reboot from 1999 , directed by Stephen Sommers and starring Brendan Fraser, was kind of fun. Monster movies frequently are. This one, directed by Alex Kurtzman and starring Tom Cruise, is an unholy mess. Mr. Cruise plays Nick Morton, a jaunty military daredevil with a sideline in antiquities theft and a nutty sidekick (Jake Johnson). When a caper goes wrong, the two call in an airstrike on an Iraqi village — I guess that’s something people are doing for kicks nowadays — and a mysterious tomb is unearthed. Luckily, an archaeologist, Dr. Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), is on hand to explain what it’s all about and also to affirm Nick’s heterosexuality.

Long story short: An ancient evil has been unleashed upon the world. Its agent is a long-buried pharaoh’s daughter, Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), who is covered with mysterious tattoos and convinced that Nick is her secret lover, or the god of death, or both. She gets inside his head, which is awkward both because he’s kind of sweet on Jenny and because it’s such an empty place. Ahmanet also has a retinue of zombielike minions at her disposal, who rampage through England on their way to a meeting with Russell Crowe.

Mr. Crowe plays another fixture in the Dark Universe, a label that strikes me as a bit of an exaggeration. Dim Universe would be more accurate, with respect both to the murky, ugly images and to the intellectual capacities of the script, written and conceived by a bunch of people who are capable of better. The old black-and-white Universal horror movies were a mixed bag, but they had some imagination. They could be creepy or campy, weird or lyrical. “The Mummy” gestures — or flails — in a number of directions but settles into the dreary 21st-century action-blockbuster template. There’s chasing and fighting, punctuated by bouts of breathless explaining and a few one-liners that an archaeologist of the future might tentatively decode as jokes.

There is a vague notion that Nick is struggling with dueling impulses toward good and evil, acting out his version of the Jekyll-Hyde predicament. A more interesting movie might have involved a similar struggle within Ahmanet, but a more interesting movie was not on anybody’s mind.

It will be argued that this one was made not for the critics but for the fans. Which is no doubt true. Every con game is played with suckers in mind.

The Mummy Rated PG-13. There’s a naked Egyptian in there somewhere. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes.

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Inside ‘The Mummy’s’ Troubles: Tom Cruise Had Excessive Control (EXCLUSIVE)

There were few signs that a major blockbuster was about to premiere when “ The Mummy ” rolled into Manhattan last week. The marquee of the AMC Loews Lincoln Square Theatres had gone blank. The carpet was totally covered with black plastic. Security only let guests past barricades after quizzing them about what they were there to see, and everybody had to walk through two imposing metal detectors.

Inside the theater, Tom Cruise was jubilant, as he stood in front of the crowd. “Hey y’all,” said the 54-year-old actor. He introduced Alex Kurtzman , the film’s director, as well as the cast members, who stood quietly as Cruise delivered a 10-minute improvised speech. “Movies aren’t made by single people,” he said. “It’s a team effort.”

But in the case of “The Mummy,” one person–Cruise–had an excessive amount of control, according to several people interviewed. The reboot of “The Mummy” was supposed to be the start of a mega-franchise for Universal Pictures. But instead, it’s become a textbook case of a movie star run amok.

As Hollywood is playing the blame game on what went wrong on “The Mummy,” which had a measly domestic opening of just $32 million, many fingers are pointing to Cruise. In the same way that he commanded the stage at the film’s premiere, leaving his cast standing awkwardly by his side, several sources close to the production say that Cruise exerted nearly complete creative oversight on “The Mummy,” essentially wearing all the hats and dictating even the smallest decisions on the set. On stage, Cruise admitted his own perfectionist tendencies. “I don’t just make a movie. I give it everything I have and I expect it from everyone also.”

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Universal, according to sources familiar with the matter, contractually guaranteed Cruise control of most aspects of the project, from script approval to post-production decisions. He also had a great deal of input on the film’s marketing and release strategy, these sources said, advocating for a June debut in a prime summer period.

With terrible reviews, “The Mummy,” which insiders say cost as much as $190 million to make and more than $100 million more to market and release worldwide, may struggle to make its money back. The film is performing much stronger overseas, where it was Cruise’s biggest international rollout with a $142 million opening weekend. It’s not clear if the movie will break even, and it’s cast a shadow on the studio’s plans for a Dark Universe franchise that’s supposed to feature A-list stars like Johnny Depp (as “The Invisible Man”) and Angelina Jolie (in negotiations for “The Bride of Frankenstein”).

A representative for Cruise didn’t respond to a request for comment. In a statement, Universal refuted that Cruise had a negative influence on the production.

“Tom approaches every project with a level of commitment and dedication that is unmatched by most working in our business today,” the statement read. “He has been a true partner and creative collaborator, and his goal with any project he works on is to provide audiences with a truly cinematic moviegoing experience.”

Cruise’s controlling behavior comes as Hollywood’s star system is in tatters. In the 1990s and early aughts, studios shelled out big money for the likes of Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, and Harrison Ford, confident that their names above the title could guarantee ticket sales. In exchange they were offered big perks, hefty salaries, and a sizable share of the profits. Along with the money came the power to veto key decisions. But as comic book movies and special effects-heavy productions took over, top actors found themselves in less demand and with less influence. Cruise has navigated the new landscape better than some–the “Mission: Impossible” franchise still makes money but other efforts such as “Oblivion” have disappointed. Going forward, he may have difficulty exerting the same kind of sway over other films.

It may be the last hurrah for big movie stars, but on the set of “The Mummy,” Cruise acted like the top gun he once was, calling all the shots. Kurtzman had been in the running to direct the project before Cruise signed on, but the actor gave his blessing for the filmmaker to slide behind the camera. They’d established a comfort level when Kurtzman worked as the screenwriter of “Mission: Impossible III.”

In the wake of “The Mummy’s” failure, the decision to tap such an untested director on a sprawling action-adventure seems to have been foolhardy. Kurtzman wouldn’t necessarily rank high on a studio’s wish list for a project this big, given that he’s a producer and writer who only helmed one small feature that debuted to mixed reviews (2012’s Chris Pine drama “People Like Us”). As Kurtzman struggled to adjust to scope of the project, it felt more like Cruise was the real director, often dictating the major action sequences and micro-managing the production, according to sources.

There were other ways that “The Mummy” was transformed from a scary summer popcorn movie into a standard-issue Tom Cruise vehicle. The actor personally commissioned two other writers along with McQuarrie to crank out a new script. Two of the film’s three credited screenwriters, McQuarrie and Dylan Kussman, an actor-writer who played small roles in “The Mummy” and “Jack Reacher,” were close allies of Cruise’s. The script envisioned Nick Morton as an earnest Tom Cruise archetype, who is laughably described as a “young man” at one point.

His writers beefed up his part. In the original script, Morton and the Mummy (played by Sofia Boutella) had nearly equal screen time. The writers also added a twist that saw Cruise’s character become possessed, to give him more of a dramatic arc. Even though Universal executives weren’t thrilled about the story — which feels disjointed and includes Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll — they went along with Cruise’s vision.

And the crew fell in line too, behind Cruise as the boss. “This is very much a film of two halves: before Tom and after Tom,” said Frank Walsh, the supervising art director, at a London screening of “The Mummy” this week. “I have heard the stories about how he drives everything and pushes and pushes, but it was amazing to work with him. The guy is a great filmmaker and knows his craft. He will walk onto a set and tell the director what to do, say ‘that’s not the right lens,’ ask about the sets, and as long as you don’t fluff what you’re saying to him … he’s easy to work for.”

Once the film was done, Cruise brought in his longtime editor Andrew Mondshein to piece together the final picture. (The film’s credits also list Gina and Paul Hirsch as editors.) He spent time in the editing suite overseeing the cutting, which everybody agreed wasn’t working. On the lot, there were differences of opinions about whether Cruise’s directions were improving a picture that had been troubled from its inception or whether they were turning a horror film into a Cruise infomercial. Some believed that Cruise had no choice but to assert himself. Given Kurtzman’s inexperience directing tentpoles, Cruise, who has carried heavily choreographed action movies all his life, had to try to rally the troops or risk having the production fall behind schedule.

Universal knew that if it wanted “The Mummy” to compete against the likes of “Wonder Woman” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” it needed every ounce of Cruise’s waning star power. As the studio scrambled to deal with weak tracking, it released a portrait in late May of Cruise with other actors from the Dark Universe franchise, including Depp and Javier Bardem (who will play Frankenstein). Yet the studio couldn’t even assemble all the actors in the room at the same time, and the image had to be Photoshopped. The Internet reaction to the last-ditch marketing effort was tepid at best. It was another reminder that the big names that once ruled Hollywood are inspiring a lot less love from audiences.

The reviews may have been brutal, but at the premiere Cruise seemed pleased, complimenting everyone involved and portraying the finished film as a team effort. “Jake! Jake!” he shouted at one of his co-stars Jake Johnson. “It was awesome working with you, Jake!”

Justin Kroll and Stewart Clarke contributed to this story.

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Tom cruise’s the mummy failure: 8 reasons why dark universe failed before it began.

Despite Tom Cruise taking the lead role, 2017’s The Mummy was a failure that stopped the Dark Universe from progressing, but why did it flop?

The marketing for 2017's The Mummy was misleading and featured unimportant details, leading viewers to have false expectations.
Tom Cruise's involvement in the film was wasted as his character lacked substance and did not showcase his talents.
The characters in The Mummy were poorly developed, making it difficult for the audience to root for them and invest in their story.

2017's reboot of The Mummy was meant to launch a new franchise for Universal called the Dark Universe, but it failed for several reasons and was ultimately scrapped. That came as a huge shock, especially with megastar Tom Cruise in the lead role, fellow A-lister Russell Crowe on board, and a talented supporting cast including Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance, and Marwan Kenzari. On paper, Dark Universe looked like a guaranteed success.

The reality just goes to show that, even with a massive budget and big names attached, movies can bomb if the other essential ingredients aren't right — and Cruise's The Mummy remake had so many fundamental ingredients missing that it was hard to ignore them all. Looking at the film objectively, it's easy to see why fans and critics panned it, as well as why the proposed franchise it was a platform for didn't progress. It may even be one of the most disappointing films of the 21st century, especially since it led to the Dark Universe concept being axed.

The Universal Dark Universe And 9 Other Abandoned Movie Franchises

8 the mummy's marketing was poor, posters, billboards, and trailers featured unimportant details.

The marketing for 2017's The Mummy was fairly uninspired and substandard in general, but there was one particularly irksome aspect of it. Whether it was a poster, a billboard, or a trailer, it all seemed to feature the eponymous Princess Ahmanet's eyes, each of which had an extra pupil. It suggested they were important and might grant her a mystical ability, but they turned out to be entirely inconsequential. Viewers were never given a chance to see what these intriguing eyes offered. She may as well have had completely normal eyes. The marketing was terribly misleading in that regard .

7 The Mummy Wastes Tom Cruise

The lead should have guaranteed its success.

Cruise an iconic and exceptional actor. Cruise has received three Academy Award acting nominations for Born on the Fourth of July , Jerry Maguire , and Magnolia . Although he's failed to win, that takes some talent. Sadly, The Mummy completely wastes his involvement by having play a paper-thin character with very little substance . He gets little to no opportunity to showcase his charm, and his talents dissolve into an almost perpetual whirlwind of generic action. Considering The Mummy is a Cruise vehicle with the superstar at the wheel, the actor may as well have taken the keys out of the ignition.

6 The Mummy Has Poor Characters

The characters are hard to root for.

Despite having the name of the monster in their titles, monster movies rely on great characters to succeed. Jaws , for instance, would be nothing without the palpable chemistry between Roy Scheider's Martin Brody, Robert Shaw's Quint, and Richard Dreyfuss' Matt Hooper. Likewise, Alien and Predator wouldn't be anywhere near as iconic without Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Dutch and their memorable co-stars. A major problem in The Mummy is poor characters. If Cruise's Nick Morton is paper-thin, the supporting characters are microscopic. They're underdeveloped and neither interesting nor likable. It's actually difficult to want them to come out of the movie victorious .

5 Unfavorable Comparisons To Previous Versions

The mummy couldn't live up to its predecessors.

Any reboot, remake, or sequel risks being compared unfavorably to its predecessors, and 2017's The Mummy always had a tough road ahead in that regard. The classic Universal series starring the likes of Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. and even the horror comedy Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy are widely revered. Plus, 1999's The Mummy and its first sequel, 2001's The Mummy Returns , are beloved adventure films. The 2017 reboot doesn't live up to them in any way . It lacks the memorable characters, the scares, the humor, and everything you should want in a Mummy franchise film. In that sense, it was doomed from the start.

4 The Mummy Has Too Much Action

The action overshadows everything else.

In a movie like The Mummy , action is obviously essential. Without any action, the film would be unspeakably boring — more so than it already is — because there'd be no sense of urgency or peril. However, 2017's reboot of The Mummy goes way too overboard with its action . It feels like director Alex Kurtzman believes fans are only entertained by action scenes, so it barely slows down at any point during the film's run. Eventually, that makes the action seem dull. However, it also takes away from several other aspects of the story, like character development, suspense, dialogue, and scares.

3 Its Comedy Is Weird And Misplaced

Tom cruise tries too hard and too often.

Cruise has proven many times that he has perfectly passable comedy chops. 1983's Losin' It and Risky Business , 1988's Cocktail , 2008's Tropic Thunder , 2010's Knight and Day , and 2017's American Made are just some movies in which Cruise has shown his funny side. However, in The Mummy , on the few occasions he engages in dialogue, he tries too hard to be funny and does it too often . It doesn't work out — not just because The Mummy isn't a comedy but because the rest of the cast are playing darker or more serious characters and aren't remotely on the same page. It's misplaced and falls completely flat.

2 The Dark Universe Is Forced And Rushed

Henry jekyll should have been introduced later.

The Mummy was intended to be the opening installment in a franchise, Universal's Dark Universe. Everyone understood that, but it didn't need to be forced down audience's throats or feel rushed and contrived. To use a common phrase to describe it: it's a marathon, not a sprint. It was, therefore, deeply unnecessary for Russell Crowe's Henry Jekyll to be shoehorned into the movie as the Dark Universe's version of Nick Fury. It was even less necessary to see his transformation into Eddie Hyde, which could have been a big reveal at a later time. All it did was take away from The Mummy as a standalone entity.

1 The Mummy Isn't Scary

The titular creature just wasn't scary.

Arguably, the most crucial factor in The Mummy's failure — and its unfortunate failure to launch the Dark Universe — is that it simply isn't scary. A Mummy movie doesn't necessarily have to be scary. Indeed, the beloved Mummy movies starring Brendan Fraser weren't for the most part. However, when it's meant to be the platform from which a franchise called the Dark Universe is born, it should feature some classic and appropriately scary cinematic monsters . The movie promised a lot, but it lacked suspense, scares, and an eponymous antagonist who's remotely frightening. Ahmanet offers nothing in terms of scares at any point in 2017's The Mummy — and that's a real shame.

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Tom Cruise–Starrer ‘The Mummy’ Was ‘Brutal’ Experience and ‘Biggest Failure of My Life,’ Says Director

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It’s taken years for director Alex Kurtzman to be able to fully unwrap the box office flop that was “ The Mummy .”

The 2017 Tom Cruise film was expected to kick off Universal’s Dark Universe franchise, extending to revivals of “The Bride of Frankenstein,” “Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde,” and “The Invisible Man” with Javier Bardem, Russell Crowe, and Johnny Depp attached to the respective projects. However, plans for the Dark Universe were scrapped after “The Mummy” failed to find life at the box office, making less than $32 million opening weekend on a budget of an estimated $190 million.

“I tend to subscribe to the point of view that you learn nothing from your successes, and you learn everything from your failures. And that was probably the biggest failure of my life, both personally and professionally,” Kurtzman told The Playlist’s “Bingeworthy” podcast . “There are about a million things I regret about it, but it also gave me so many gifts that are inexpressibly beautiful.”

Related Stories Lewis Hamilton Regretted Turning Down a Role in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’: ‘It Could’ve Been Me!’ Jerry Bruckheimer Offers ‘Top Gun 3’ Update: Joseph Kosinski Is Developing a ‘Wonderful’ Story Idea for Tom Cruise

“The Mummy” stars Tom Cruise as a U.S. Army sergeant who accidentally unleashes ancient Egyptian princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) into the modern world. Cruise reportedly had “an excessive amount of control” on the production, as industry insiders previously told Variety .

On “Bingeworthy,” Kurtzman admitted that production was “brutal” in part due to too “many cooks in the kitchen.”

Yet the “Man Who Fell to Earth” director added, “I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to make those mistakes because it rebuilt me into a tougher person, and it also rebuilt me into a clearer filmmaker, and that has been a real gift.”

Kurtzman continued, “I feel those gifts all the time because I’m very clear now — when I have a feeling that doesn’t feel right, I am not quiet about it anymore. I will literally not proceed when I feel that feeling. It’s not worth it to me. And you can’t get to that place of gratitude until you’ve had that kind of experience.”

He also credited “The Mummy” with making him a “real” director, saying, “I didn’t become a director until I made that movie, and it wasn’t because it was well directed — it was because it wasn’t. I would not have understood many of the things that I now understand about what it means to be a director had I not gone through that experience.”

According to “Shadow and Bone” creator Eric Heisserer, who was set to helm the Dark Universe’s “Van Helsing” installment, the Universal franchise was a mess behind-the-scenes . Heisserer previously told The Playlist that production meetings were comparable to Thanksgiving day family bickering.

“You had some people saying, ‘Should our monsters all be villains in these movies or can they all be heroes?'” Heisserer said. “And someone else would say, ‘We can build the plane when we fly it.’ And it’s me and Jon Spaihts at the table going, ‘That’s a terrible analogy. We don’t want to be on that plane. What are we doing here?'”

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10 Valid Reasons Fans Didn’t Like 2017’s The Mummy Remake

The 2017 Tom Cruise film, The Mummy, was panned by critics, but fans have some legitimate beefs with the reboot as well

Released in 1999, The Mummy , starring Brendan Fraser, found the right mix of action, danger, and humor to be one of the most entertaining monster movie remakes ever. After two sequels, there was a fourth movie planned, but Universal Pictures canceled it to focus on a reboot. That movie ended up being the 2017 Tom Cruise Dark Universe The Mummy , which was panned across the board and hated by fans.

With a budget of $195 million and a box office take of $410 million, the 2017 film technically made money but was still considered a failure by the studio. The reason is quite simple and that's because it was dreadful from the story to the execution. As the Brendan Fraser remake is being re-released to celebrate its 25th anniversary , fans can relive a truly fun movie, while confirming their valid dislike for the Tom Cruise reboot.

10 The Mummy Story Was Preposterous

10 best mummy movies, ranked.

The Mummy story was conceived by Jon Spaihts, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet
The screenplay was written by David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie, and Dylan Kussman

For the 2017 The Mummy reboot, any number of previous Mummy film stories could have been recycled with an update, and it would have been fine. Even a new plot would have worked if it at least had the basic elements of a Mummy story. This movie, however, was far away from a classic tale and so far-fetched that it lost the audience in the first act.

People have no problem believing that a 5,000-year-old Mummy could come back to life and run amok, but the reboot had such an absurd premise that it lost the temporary suspension of disbelief. Everything from the Mummy's unlikely tomb in Iraq to the impossible set of circumstances that led to its discovery had fans disbelieving all the events of the film.

9 There Was A Distinct Lack Of Egypt In A Mummy Movie

The Mummy was filmed at Pinewood Studios and Shepperton Studios in England
Location shooting was in Oxford, London, and Namibia

10 Weirdest Versions of Classic Movie Monsters, Ranked

Making a movie about an Egyptian mummy should, at the very least, have something to do with Egypt, but the 2017 reboot avoided the country altogether. The tomb of Ahmanet, the mummy, was located in Iraq, 1,000 miles from Egypt, and then everything shifted to London, England. The only time audiences get to see Egypt is at the end when the heroes go there to set up a sequel that is never going to happen.

It is possible, and sometimes even important, to update a classic monster tale with a contemporary setting. Dracula can be in New Orleans, like in Renfield , without seeming out of place, and Godzilla can crush San Francisco as he did in the 2014 remake, with no cause for concern. A mummy movie, on the other hand, deals with ancient Egyptian history and mythology, so it must take place, or at least originate, in Egypt.

8 None Of The Characters Were Particularly Likable

The Mummy starred Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson, and Sofia Boutella
Courtney B. Vance, Russell Crowe, Marwan Kenzari, and Javier Botet had supporting roles

Chances are that if a movie has a poorly-written script, it will also have weak characters and The Mummy didn't beat those odds. From heroes to villains, every character in the 2017 movie was flat, lacking any kind of interesting aspects or dynamics. Even worse, these one-dimensional characters were all forced and fairly annoying, making for an overall cast that was hard to like.

Tom Cruise, as the protagonist Nick Morton, was supposed to be a gallant, heroic type, but came off as arrogant and reckless, which made him hard to root for. This was a struggle that persisted throughout the movie, not just with Cruise's character, but with the entire cast. Fans just couldn't connect with them. This created a situation in which there was no real peril because the audience didn't care if anyone got hurt or died.

7 The Mummy Tried To Be Too Many Things

The Mummy was directed by Alex Kurtzman
Kurtzman's only other film directing credit is the 2012 drama People Like Us

The 2017 reboot tried to be an action flick, a buddy comedy, and a horror film simultaneously and failed in every regard. As an action movie, it came off like Mission Impossible with a mummy, which is as unappealing as it sounds. The humor was embarrassingly bad, and the horror elements were weak. It's not that it is impossible to blend these genres, but The Mummy couldn't find a way.

The 1999 Brendan Fraser remake found the perfect balance of adventure, laughs, and scares and so did the 2004 Hugh Jackman action horror Van Helsing . Those two movies, however, had good scripts, engaging stories, and likable characters, which made combining styles easy and seamless. The 2017 movie could have worked if it was good at something, but it was bad at everything.

6 The Mummy Wasn't Scary

The Mummy was distributed by Universal Pictures
It was released on June 9, 2017 worldwide

10 Funniest Horror Movie Parodies

The Mummy was a horror movie without scares, but the title character was also far from terrifying. Sofia Boutella, who was great in Kingsman: The Secret Service , Atomic Blonde, and Rebel Moon was not a very frightening mummy, though probably not her fault. The story, direction, and design conspired to make a mummy that didn't deliver the chills.

Even though the 1999 remake was a light-hearted family-friendly movie, Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep was sufficiently scary. In the original 1932 film, Borris Karloff as Imhotep, induced panic, and even the absurd mummy from Bubba Hotep was a little freaky. Rule number one for a horror movie is to have a scary antagonist, but the 2017 reboot chose to ignore that.

5 It Insulted The Audience's Intelligence

The Mummy earned $410 million at the box office
Only $80.2 of that take was from the U.S. market

One of the biggest turnoffs in the 2017 reboot was the complete disregard for the audience's intelligence by including downright stupid things. It started in the beginning when Nick and Chris called in an airstrike that took less than a minute to arrive and then just so happened to open up a hole into an ancient Egyptian tomb in the middle of Iraq. Then, as insurgents are closing in, U.S. soldiers, fighting a war, fly directly to England.

The plane crashes, but Tom Cruise's character survives without a scratch because Ahmanet has a mummy crush on him, with no explanation for how he became supernaturally enabled. Hours after a U.S. military plane crashed in London, only two British police officers were sent to investigate, and much of the wreckage was still on fire. The inherent dumbness of the movie underestimated the intelligence of the audience.

4 It Was A Mockery Of The Genre

The original The Mummy came out in 1932
Universal has made 10 mummy movies and 5 Scorpion King spin-offs

Successful remakes have an affinity for the source material and great horrors respect the genre, but the 2017 reboot had nothing but disdain for all of that. It essentially thumbed its nose at the Mummy legacy, which, if it had been a spoof or parody would have worked, but because it was trying to be a serious movie, it came off as mockery. The movie had an undeserved sense of self-importance that was irksome to fans.

It was also lazy and derivative, stealing ideas from other films and executing them poorly. The biggest example of this is the character Chris, who dies and comes back as a wise-cracking disfigured ghost who warns Nick that he has been cursed. That had already been done in An American Werewolf in London and with way more entertainment value.

3 Tom Cruise Was Wrong For This Movie

Tom Cruise has starred in 45 movies
Only 2 of those movies were horror-related

Tom Cruise usually plays a hotshot who doesn't play by the rules but gets results in almost every movie, which is fine for Top Gun or Days of Thunder . In a horror movie, on the other hand, it's quite distracting, and actually, that's what his presence in this movie was. Cruise is one of the biggest movie stars in the world , and casting him in The Mummy drew all the attention away from the story, as flawed as it was.

Much in the same way that Cruise sucked all the creepy eroticism out of Lestat in An Interview with a Vampire , his mega-star status drained any horror credibility the film might have had. In all fairness, there isn't an actor alive who could have stepped into this role and made the film any better, because the story, character, and dialog were so profoundly bad, but Cruise certainly didn't help things.

2 It Killed Any Hope For The Dark Universe

10 movies that put a bizarre spin on classic monsters.

The first attempt at the dark Universe was Dracula Untold in 2014
At least 7 movies were canceled when the Dark Universe died

In theory, a shared universe of films with the classic Universal Monsters is very appealing. While the studio had floundered in launching the Dark Universe, there was hope among fans that they'd eventually get it right and create something deviously entertaining. All of those hopes were crushed with the lackluster 2017 The Mummy reboot, which effectively killed off the Dark Universe.

There was an entire slate of potentially interesting moves lined up, including Angelina Jolie as the Bride of Frankenstein , Johnny Depp as The Invisible Man , and Channing Tatum as Van Helsing. This horror franchise was ready to go, but then The Mummy ended up being such a stinker that Universal canceled the whole thing.

1 It Was Utterly Forgettable

The Mummy was nominated for 8 Golden Raspberry Awards
Under-performing again, it only won one

The worst thing a work of art can do is to elicit indifference. Love it or hate it, a great work of art conjures emotions and strong feelings for or against it. The ultimate failure of the 2017 reboot is that it didn't leave a lasting impression on the audience. There were no stand-out scenes or performances, it didn't permeate popular culture, nor did it build a dedicated fan base.

Most people who saw the movie would be hard-pressed to recall anything that happened in it because it left no lasting impression. The movie was bad, but it wasn't so awful that it became a cult hit, which would have been redeeming for it. Rather, it was 110 minutes of group-think, corporate movie-making that was unimportant and completely forgettable.

An ancient Egyptian princess is awakened from her crypt beneath the desert, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia and terrors that defy human comprehension.

20 Thrilling Behind-The-Scenes Facts From Tom Cruise's Biggest Films

F or nearly 40 years, Tom Cruise has been one of the biggest movie stars in the world. From his breakout role in Top Gun to the franchise lead in Mission Impossible , few stars boast the resume that Cruise has. He's also worth a cool $500 million. He's kind of a big deal. With four decades of movies under his belt, it's fair to assume a lot of interesting things have happened behind the scenes. Here are the craziest Tom Cruise movie secrets you need to know!

He Won't Sign Onto A Movie Unless He Gets To Do His Own Stunts

Tom Cruise famously performs the most dangerous stunts in all his movies. Watch any Mission Impossible movie, and it's shocking how much danger the action star is willing to put himself in. Cruise reportedly refuses to sign onto movies that won't let him do his stunts.

Say a movie wants to cast Cruise but won't let him jump from high rise to high rise for a critical chase scene. The producers better start looking for a different, more risk-averse actor. Tom Cruise feels the need, the need for speed!

He Took Lead Role In Valkyrie Because He Looked Like The Real Person

The movie Valkyrie is based on the true story of Colonel von Stauffenberg's assassination attempt on Hitler during World War II. When Cruise was offered the role, there was no sales pitch that convinced him to sign on. Instead, he noticed that he bared a striking resemblance to the German soldier.

Cruise was sold, proving sometimes looks are all that matters. The movie was a moderate success, earning $200 million worldwide. Doing his own stunts has its downfalls.

Mission Impossible: Fallout Literally Broke Tom Cruise

Mission Impossible: Fallout came close to missing its summer 2018 release date after Tom Cruise broke his ankle performing a stunt. The film had to take a break from filming in 2017 after Cruise couldn't stick his landing after a scary jump. The hiatus put the movie's release in serious doubt.

Never doubt Tom Cruise, though. After a brutal seven-week recovery, cameras were able to roll again. He also continued punishing his body by doing his stunts. All his hard work paid off. A seventh movie in the profitable franchise is already being planned.

The Last Samurai Almost Killed Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise earned an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Last Samurai . If it wasn't for his co-star saving his life, we'd be writing a very different article right now. Using real samurai swords rigged for safety was a bad idea when one of the rigs broke.

The sword came one inch from Cruise's neck before Hiroyuki Sanada stopped it. That reminds us of the helicopter scene at the end of the first Mission Impossible ! Somehow it always comes back to Ethan Hunt.

Anne Rice Hated His Casting In Interview With A Vampire

Without author Anne Rice, there would be no Interview With The Vampire . Having written the book, she was not happy to see the film cast Tom Cruise in the role of the vampire Lestat. She was so upset with his selection that she publicly criticized Cruise and everyone involved with the film.

After the movie came out, Rice changed her tune. It turns out Tom Cruise was perfect for Lestat, and he proved it with his performance. To apologize, Rice bought a two-page ad in Daily Variety praising Cruise's portrayal of her most famous vampire.

Les Grossman Was Created For Tropic Thunder By Cruise

When Ben Stiller was struggling to write Tropic Thunder he had Tom Cruise read the script. Cruise suggested he include a movie executive in the film as a way to create pressure on the characters. Later, he decided to play the role of Les Grossman himself, under two very odd conditions.

The first condition was the character have fat hands. The second condition was that the bald and overweight studio executive be a dancer. And that is how one of the most memorable characters in movie history was created.

The Iconic Risky Business Dance Was Adlibbed

Even if you've never seen Risky Business , you've probably seen Tom Cruise's infamous underwear dance. According to the actor, he made up the routine himself, on the spot, "I just ad-libbed that," he said during an interview .

But how did he stick the landing on his slide to enter the scene? As he explains, "I dusted the floor and then put stick (tape) on the other side so I would get the center frame on that and wore the socks."

The Mummy Was A Real Monster Behind The Scenes

The Mummy was supposed to start Universal's "Dark Universe." That is until Tom Cruise got his hands on it. According to reports, Cruise took over every aspect of the film, from the story to the direction, and even the editing.

Despite having a team hired by Universal, Cruise brought in his own editor and screenwriter, then wrangled control of the direction away from Alex Kurtzman. For all his meddling, Cruise's version of The Mummy earned terrible reviews and scared audiences away. Made for $190 million, the film only grossed $80 million stateside.

Cruise Destroyed A $100,000 Camera Filming Days Of Thunder

Tom Cruise's "need for speed" is iconic, and it got the better of him while filming Days of Thunder . Playing NASCAR driver Cole Trickle, Cruise drove his stock car during several scenes. I

n one scene he lost control of the car and crashed into a wall, destroying a $100,000 camera in the process.

He Didn't Get Paid For Minority Report

Tom Cruise was so passionate to film the 2002 film Minority Report with Steven Spielberg that he refused to take a paycheck. Spielberg refused money also, something he claimed to have on his last eight films. Instead of getting money upfront, the pair cut a deal to earn 15 percent of the movie's gross.

Minority Report made $358 million worldwide, netting Cruise and Spielberg around $54 million each. That's pretty amazing. They took a chance on a passion project and it paid off big time!

He Was A Passenger In A Car Accident During Filming For Edge Of Tomorrow

For Edge Of Tomorrow , Emily Blunt had to drive a van with Tom Cruise as her passenger. The van needed to be seen shaking for one particular scene, so producers had Blunt make a hard turn at a pretty high speed. But she lost control and the van crashed into a tree.

She was upset that she could have injured (or even killed) Cruise, but fortunately, they both walked away unharmed. And even laughed about the incident later.

One Stunt He Didn't Perform

We know that Tom Cruise prefers to perform even the most dangerous stunts himself. But according to director Martin Scorsese, there was one stunt that he didn't complete when filming the 1986 drama The Color of Money .

His character had to perform a bunch of complicated pool shots, which wasn't a problem for Cruise. Except for one: a shot where his ball had to leap over two others and sink a third. Scorsese said that he thinks Cruise could have made the shot but it would have taken two days. And that's just too long during movie production, so an expert was brought in to do the shot.

He Broke His Thumb Making The Outsiders

The 1983 coming-of-age drama The Outsiders featured a fight between two rival gangs, the Greasers and the Socs. Things got pretty out of control during filming and one of Cruise's thumbs was broken in the scuffle.

He wasn't the only one to get hurt in the fight, either; two of Cruise's fellow actors were also injured. Tom Howell got a black eye and Emilio Estevez's lip was cut. That must have been quite a brawl!

He Lost A Lot Of Weight For Risky Business

The creators of Risky Business really wanted Tom Cruise to be as baby-faced as possible. To prepare for the role, he got serious about dropping weight fast. He told People that he followed a strict eating plan and jogged daily in the brutal Florida sunshine for five weeks. And then when he hit his target weight, he stopped exercising completely "so I could put on a little layer of baby fat."

"[Joel Goodson is] a very vulnerable person,” Tom explained. “I didn't want any physical defenses up for him. No muscle armor at all.”

Tom Cruise Has An Impressive Set Of Lungs

For 2015's Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation , Tom Cruise had to hold his breath for almost six and a half minutes! We knew he did all his own stunts but this might be one of the craziest of them. He called the experience unpleasant but explained his training technique to EW .

"You get rid of the regulator, get rid of the bubbles, get on the side and we wanted to do it one shot, so they were very, very long shots," he said. “I'd have to hold it consistently, you know safely, up to four minutes almost for every take.”

He Really Sang In Rock Of Ages

For the 2012 musical Rock of Ages , Tom Cruise insisted on singing his own parts. Of course, he did, right? He trained for four months, up to five hours each day to perfect his voice.

Cruise also filmed the scene where he sang "Pour Some Sugar On Me" while Def Leppard (the band that originally performed the song) watched. The guy just doesn't like to make things easy for himself.

Born On The Third Of July

In the 1989 war drama Born on the Fourth of July , Tom Cruise played a real-life Vietnam War veteran named Ron Kovic. Kovic was actually born on the 4th of July, as the title indicates.

It turns out that Cruise and Kovic almost share the birthday. Cruise was born on July 3, though, just a day early. Audiences didn't mind the discrepancy (as if they were even aware of it), as the film pulled in $161 million worldwide.

He Wasn't Expecting Emily Blunt To Kiss Him In Edge Of Tomorrow

Maybe he hadn't read the script thoroughly, because it sounds like Tom Cruise was surprised when Emily Blunt kissed him during filming for Edge of Tomorrow . She opened up about the moment to BBC Radio . "I mean, [it was] great. I don't think he was expecting it. I just sort of planted one on him," she said.

Blunt continued, "I think he was a bit taken aback. He was like, 'Oh my god! This is what we're doing.' Well, Tom had read the scene but he hadn't really read the stage directions. There were some new pages."

He Holds A Huge Box Office Record

We already know that his movies rake in tons of money at the box office, but Tom Cruise holds another distinction in that area. He became the first actor ever to star in five consecutive movies that each made more than $100 million in the United States.

The films were A Few Good Men (1992), The Firm (1993), Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), and Jerry Maguire in 1996. That's a pretty good run for the money.

Cruise Inspired A Character In A Movie He Wasn't Even In

Although he's been in some live-action Disney movies, Tom Cruise hasn't yet voiced an animated character for the studio. However, he was the inspiration for a very famous Disney prince. Can you guess which one? Turns out that Aladdin was based on the actor!

While providing commentary for the 2004 DVD release of the film, producers revealed that executive Jeffrey Katzenberg decided that the animation should be modeled after Cruise because of his "iconic hero" look.

20 Thrilling Behind-The-Scenes Facts From Tom Cruise’s Biggest Films

More From Forbes

Does ‘abigail’ have an end credits scene.

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Abigail (Alisha Weir) in a scene from "Abigail."

Note: Spoilers from the film are revealed below.

Abigail — a vampire movie inspired by the Universal Monsters spinoff Dracula’s Daughter — is new in theaters. Does it have an end credits scene to indicate more screams are on the way?

Abigail comes from Universal Pictures, which keeps opening its vault to mine new stories based on their classic monsters franchise that made household names out of the title characters in Dracula , Frankenstein , The Mummy , The Wolfman and The Creature from the Black Lagoon from the 1930s through the 1950s.

Those core movies, of course, inspired spinoff movies if not direct sequels like The Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein, as well as Son of Dracula and House of Dracula . Also produced was the 1936 spinoff Dracula’s Daughter , starring Gloria Holden in the lead role as Countess Marya Zaleska, aka Dracula’s Daughter.

The new version of the tale focuses on 12-year-old Abigail (Alisha Weir), the ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure. Abigail is also the target of a group of criminals who need to kidnap the girl and hold her in a broken-down mansion for 24 hours to collect a $50 million ransom. The group, however, gets much more than they bargained for with the seemingly harmless pre-teen when she reveals herself to be a bloodthirsty vampire.

Surprisingly, there is no end credits scene for Abigail. There is a dedication to start the credits, though, which says, “In loving memory of Angus Cloud,” an Abigail and Euphoria cast member who died of an accidental overdose in July of 2023.

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As for future installments of Abigail , two principal cast members survive the mayhem. Another character mentioned in name only throughout the film turns up at the end, leaving the door open for a sequel.

Will ‘Abigail’ Get A Sequel?

Since Abigail is technically a Universal Monsters tale — and given there are dozens of such tales in Universal Studios’ library — a sequel is certainly a possibility given the way the film concludes.

Of course, Abigail must first perform well at the box office to even merit consideration, so if it meets its projected $12 million to $15 million take at this weekend’s box office (per Variety ), it will already be halfway to recouping its $28 million production budget.

Even after the dead-on-arrival performance of the Nicholas Hoult-Nicolas Cage Dracula -inspired horror comedy Renfield in 2023 — it earned an anemic $26.4 million at the worldwide box office against a $65 million budget (via IMDb ) — Universal seems intent on bringing back its monsters to the movie masses.

Universal, of course, tried to revive its monster properties in 2017 with the Tom Cruise version of The Mummy , the first and last film in the studio’s ambitious Dark Universe saga that fell flat at the box office.

Renfield aside, director Leigh Whannell made a huge hit out of the 2020 remake of The Invisible Man , which pulled in a whopping $139 million at the global box office against a $7 million production (via The Numbers ). True, Abigail is budgeted much higher than The Invisible Man, but even a $28 million budget spend is a bargain these days for a studio film.

No matter how Abigail fares at the box office, a remake of The Wolfman is on the way with Whannell once again at the helm. The remake — which stars Poor Things actor Christopher Abbott and Ozark Emmy winner Julia Garner — is set for a 2025 release.

Variety reported that The Wolfman was originally targeted for a Halloween 2024 release, but Universal announced in March that it was pushing the film’s release date back to January 17, 2025.

Produced by Chad Villella and directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett —who collectively are known as Radio Silence — and also starring Melissa Barrera, Kathryn Hahn, Dan Stevens and Giancarlo Esposito, Abigail is new in theaters.

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Tom Cruise's generous birthday gifts revealed ahead of Suri Cruise's 18th birthday

The mission impossible actor shares suri with his ex-wife katie holmes.

Tom Cruise attends the UK premiere and Royal Film Performance of 'Top Gun: Maverick'

Tom Cruise goes above and beyond when it comes to giving gifts and his generosity has been highlighted ahead of his daughter, Suri's 18th birthday .

In an interview with Harper's Bazaar , Tom's former co-star, Dakota Fanning, revealed she's received a birthday gift from him every year since they starred in War of the Worlds together.

At the time, Dakota was 11 years old and she recently turned 30 — and he didn't forget that milestone either.

"Tom sends me a birthday gift every year, and has since that birthday," she told the outlet. "30, I got a birthday gift. So thoughtful, yeah really really nice."

Tom also gave Dakota her first cell phone and she remembers it like it was yesterday.

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Katie holmes delights fans with the sweetest photo of suri to mark mother's day, katie holmes looks exactly like daughter suri in her latest throwback photo, suri cruise is the spitting image of her dad on rare outing with mum katie holmes, 'i have in no way cut suri out of my life': tom cruise denies claims he 'abandoned' daughter.

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Suri cruise spotted on the streets of nyc days before her 18th birthday & yes, you’re that old.

by Rebecca Rakowitz

Rebecca Rakowitz

Parenting Writer

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NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 08: Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise perform during the 2017 Z100 Jingle Ball at Madison Square Garden on December 8, 2017 in New York City.

The teen looked so joyful walking around SoHo in New York with her friends, reveling in one of the first sunny days of spring.

Actors Katie Holmes (L) and Tom Cruise attend The Cinema Society's The Romantics screening party at Gansevoort Park Avenue. (Photo by Steve Eichner/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images)

“Suri would have been too young to sign any agreement, but she will now be free to talk if she wants to and it’s going to be really interesting if she has something to say,” Tony Ortega, a seasoned Scientology reporter previously said .

“If you are a regular church member you could be told to disconnect from your wife and daughter, but because Tom is a celebrity — he’s the top celebrity — he gets to ignore all this stuff,” Ortega told Page Six . “Your average member would be kicked out, but [the leader of Scientology] David Miscavige can’t do that with Tom.”

So who knows, maybe Cruise will reach out to his estranged daughter on Thursday for her Big Day. And maybe she will have a lot to share with the world.

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NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

Tom Cruise ‘doesn’t exist’ to daughter Suri, 18, as she celebrates milestone birthday ‘without A-list dad’

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In news that has made us all feel ancient, Suri Cruise is celebrating her 18th birthday today, and is officially an adult.

The teenager, only daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, wasn’t letting a bit of rain dampen her celebrations, and has been pictured spending her milestone big day running around New York with a pal.

The Dawson’s Creek actress, 45, welcomed her first child with the Top Gun star, 61, in 2006, shortly before they tied the knot.

Katie famously filed for divorce in a bombshell move at the end of June, 2012, with the former couple signing a settlement a few weeks later – details relating to their split are still shrouded in secrecy, but she was reportedly granted full custody of their child.

While Suri has always shared a close bond with her mom , there have been questions raised about her relationship with her dad – who is currently filming for a new project in London.

Although neither have spoken publicly about this, an insider has now claimed that there is a rift between the Hollywood star and his youngest child .

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes daughter Suri Cruise

‘Tom does not exist to her,’ a source told DailyMail.com . ‘Suri will not have any contact with her father, despite being 18, and even if he called, she would not answer.

‘He does not exist to Katie or Suri, and his daughter does not want to rely on him for anything.

‘She feels that she has one parent and that is her mother.’

According to the outlet, Tom will no longer be required to pay child support to his ex-wife now that Suri has reached the age of 18, which may sever one of their last remaining ties.

The youngster was unveiled to the world as a newborn baby on the cover of Vanity Fair in 2006, but her mom has since taken steps to shield her from the spotlight as much as possible.

‘What has been really important for me with my daughter, because she was so visible at a young age, is I really like to protect her,’ she told the outlet.

‘I’m very grateful to be a parent, to be her parent. She’s an incredible person.’

Despite this, she has allowed Suri the opportunity to follow in her footsteps in the industry over the years – and invited her to sing on her recent projects, Rare Objects and Alone Together.

‘I hope she always does something on my films. I always ask her. But both of those experiences came out of the same sense of what I love about our industry, which is, you have these projects and you become a family with people,’ she continued.

‘And it’s this safe, beautiful, creative space. So it comes out of love for me to include someone who I love dearly. That’s how I like to work. I like to have that kind of feeling. It was very meaningful to me to have her there, because she’s my heart.

‘It’s wild to have a daughter who’s almost the same age as I was when I began all this.’

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The Mummy (2017 film)
The Mummy is a 2017 American fantasy action-adventure film directed by Alex Kurtzman and written by David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie, and Dylan Kussman, with a story by Kurtzman, Jon Spaihts, and Jenny Lumet.A reboot of the Mummy franchise as part of Universal's scrapped Dark Universe, it stars Tom Cruise as U.S. Army Sergeant Nick Morton, a soldier of fortune who accidentally unearths the ...
The Mummy (2017)
The Mummy: Directed by Alex Kurtzman. With Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Annabelle Wallis, Sofia Boutella. An ancient Egyptian princess is awakened from her crypt beneath the desert, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia and terrors that defy human comprehension.
The Mummy (2017)
The Mummy (2017) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. Menu. Movies. ... Tom Cruise Alice Moore ... personal hair & makeup artist: Tom Cruise Fawn Muller ... special makeup effects coordinator/buyer Antonia Neophytou ...
The Mummy
Tom Cruise headlines a spectacular, all-new cinematic version of the legend that has fascinated cultures all over the world since the dawn of civilization: T...
'The Mummy' Ending: Tom Cruise Movie Transformation, Sequel Explained
Cruise's Nick Morton sacrifices himself in order to defeat the Mummy (Sofia Boutella) and resurrect Jenny ( Anabelle Wallis). Morton is no longer a man, but has truly become a monster, with his ...
The Mummy
The Mummy: Official Clip - Death Kiss The Mummy: ... Kermode Kermode & Mayo's Film Review The film can't decide what it wants to be other than a Tom Cruise vehicle. Aug 28 ...
The Mummy (2017)
Soldier of fortune Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) accidentally discovers the tomb of a female pharaoh of ancient Egypt named Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) during a firefight in the Middle East. But when he and a British Egyptologist (Annabelle Wallis) try to excavate the findings, the resurrected Ahmanet emerges from her sarcophagus with a plot to enslave ...
The Mummy movie review & film summary (2017)
"The Mummy," directed (if that's what you want to call it; I honestly think the better term here is "ostensibly overseen on behalf of the studio executives") ... I got sand in my synapses during an early scene in which Tom Cruise, as a looter named Nick Morton (oh, "Mort," I get it now), ...
The Mummy
On June 9, #TheMummy will be awoken. Watch the new trailer now.--Follow:https://www.facebook.com/TheMummy/https://twitter.com/themummyhttps://www.instagram.c...
'The Mummy' Review: Tom Cruise in an Overly Busy Remake
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On June 9, it takes a monster to defeat a monster. Watch the final trailer. #TheMummy #TomCruise--Follow:https://www.facebook.com/TheMummy/https://twitter.co...
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It is Tom Cruise, who is back to launch a big summer reboot of The Mummy, that classic chiller about the revived corpse from ancient Egypt, from which the tomb door was last prised off in a ...
What Exactly Happened To Tom Cruise's Nick Morton In The Mummy?
Needless to say, a lot went wrong with "The Mummy" and Universal's plans to establish the Dark Universe on the big screen, preventing any interested parties from seeing Nick Morton's (Tom Cruise ...
The Mummy 2017 Ending Explained
The ending of The Mummy (2017) gives Tom Cruise's Nick Morton the power of the Egyptian god of death, Set, setting up a shared universe team-up that never happened. While The Mummy (2017) was meant to kickstart Universal's Dark Universe before an MCU-style crossover between universal monsters like The Invisible Man (to be played by Johnny Depp) and Frankenstein's Monster (played by Javier ...
The Mummy Ending Explained
With Tom Cruise now essentially commanding all the powers of the Mummy—and it left open-ended whether they'll permanently damage his good looks with makeup—one piece of the puzzle is complete.
Review: 'The Mummy,' With Tom Cruise, Deserves a Quick Burial
The "Mummy" reboot from 1999, directed by Stephen Sommers and starring Brendan Fraser, was kind of fun. Monster movies frequently are. This one, directed by Alex Kurtzman and starring Tom ...
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The Mummy starring Tom Cruise has found a new lease on life since its recent addition to Netflix's ever-expanding library. The 2017 action-adventure horror movie, a bold reboot of the original ...
'The Mummy': How Tom Cruise Took Control of Universal's ...
Inside 'The Mummy's' Troubles: Tom Cruise Had Excessive Control (EXCLUSIVE) There were few signs that a major blockbuster was about to premiere when " The Mummy " rolled into Manhattan ...
Watch The Mummy
A treasure-hunting soldier reawakens an ancient Egyptian princess who has waited for centuries to take revenge on a world that wronged her. Watch trailers & learn more.
'The Mummy' Official Trailer (2017)
Watch the trailer for "The Mummy," starring Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis, Courtney B. Vance, Jake Johnson, Marwan Kenzari, and...
Tom Cruise's The Mummy Failure: 8 Reasons Why Dark Universe Failed
2017's reboot of The Mummy was meant to launch a new franchise for Universal called the Dark Universe, but it failed for several reasons and was ultimately scrapped. That came as a huge shock, especially with megastar Tom Cruise in the lead role, fellow A-lister Russell Crowe on board, and a talented supporting cast including Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance, and Marwan Kenzari.
The Mummy Tom Cruise Film Was My Biggest Failure, Director Says
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Valid Reasons Fans Didn't Like 2017's The Mummy Remake
The Mummy starred Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson, and Sofia Boutella Courtney B. Vance, Russell Crowe, Marwan Kenzari, and Javier Botet had supporting roles Chances are that if a movie has a poorly-written script, it will also have weak characters and The Mummy didn't beat those odds. From heroes to villains, every character in the ...
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The Mummy (2017) The shots of Tom Cruise running in his films are almost as iconic as his roles. Perhaps this is why he doesn't allow his co-stars to run alongside him on screen. He wants all the attention to himself and honestly, we cannot blame him for that! Actress Annabelle Wallis though, had the privilege of being the exception to the ...
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F or nearly 40 years, Tom Cruise has been one of the biggest movie stars in the world. ... Cruise's version of The Mummy earned terrible reviews and scared audiences away. Made for $190 million ...
Does 'Abigail' Have An End Credits Scene?
Universal, of course, tried to revive its monster properties in 2017 with the Tom Cruise version of The Mummy, the first and last film in the studio's ambitious Dark Universe saga that fell flat ...
Tom Cruise's generous birthday gifts revealed ahead of Suri Cruise's
Dakota - who played Tom's character, Ray Ferrier's daughter, Rachel in the science fiction movie - confession comes after her milestone birthday and ahead of Siri's who turns 18 on April 18. Tom ...
The Mummy Official Trailer #1 (2017) Tom Cruise, Sofia ...
The Mummy Trailer 1 (2017) Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella Action Movie HD [Official Trailer]
Suri Cruise Spotted on Streets of NYC Days Before Her 18th ...
Questions loom over what Suri's 18th birthday will mean for her relationship with her estranged father, Tom Cruise. Cruise is one of the leading figures in Scientology, and while Holmes is ...
Tom Cruise 'doesn't exist' to daughter Suri as she turns ...
Tom Cruise's daughter, Suri Cruise, turned 18 years old today (Pictures: Backgrid / Getty) In news that has made us all feel ancient, Suri Cruise is celebrating her 18th birthday today, and is ...