Director Lee Cronin Says His Mummy Movie Is Almost ‘One Part Poltergeist and One Part Seven’

“This is simply a precise antithetic benignant of Mummy movie.”

That’s what writer-director Lee Cronin told maine during a Zoom telephone past week astir his upcoming fearfulness film, the eponymous Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. And really, it lone makes consciousness that he’d privation to differentiate the movie from the many, galore Mummy titles that person travel before. From Boris Karloff to Christopher Lee to Brendan Fraser and each the mode up to Tom Cruise, determination person been an untold fig of movies involving ancient, cursed burial sites, reawakened if not-quite-alive ghouls, and the heroes who question to nonstop them backmost to the onshore of the dead. And present with Lee Cronin's The Mummy, we’ll beryllium getting a caller rotation connected this age-old concept.

Watch the teaser trailer for Lee Cronin's The Mummy close here:

Cronin made his people connected the fearfulness country with 2023’s Evil Dead Rise, the 5th movie successful that beloved and goopy series, and earlier that with his diagnostic debut, the 2019 Sundance rubric The Hole successful the Ground. But arsenic is often the lawsuit with masters of the macabre, the antheral down the monsters comes crossed arsenic an unassuming and affable guy.

“The movie itself truly is simply a enigma and it's a puzzle box, which was portion of my gully towards it,” helium smiles. “I deliberation for maine what's truly absorbing and exciting, surely adjacent from puerility and being drawn towards Egyptian lore and that full world, is the secrets that beryllium and the hidden things. So the movie that I wanted to marque was reflective of that thought of deep, buried secrets and things we whitethorn not cognize about. This movie is coming from a precise antithetic place, and it's not adjacent a reinvention of mummy lore; it's looking into darker places and doing thing antithetic with what we deliberation we mightiness already know.”

Above: A country from New Line Cinema, Atomic Monster and Blumhouse's LEE CRONIN'S THE MUMMY. Image astatine apical of page: NATALIE GRACE arsenic Katie. (A Warner Bros. Pictures Release. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

One Part Poltergeist and One Part Seven

“It's an insane mashup to suggest, but [this movie is] astir 1 portion Poltergeist and 1 portion Seven, but enactment done my lens and the mode that I similar to entertain people,” laughs Cronin.

As noted, determination person been a ton of Mummy movies implicit the years, but they’ve usually been consecutive shambling monster yarns similar the films featuring the bandaged ghoul of (most of) the Universal Monster cycle, oregon sometimes action-based adventures, arsenic with the Brendan Fraser bid oregon adjacent the 2017 Tom Cruise film. But a Poltergeist/Seven combo package? That surely sounds new.

“I'm an Amblin kid, a kid of Spielberg, nary doubt,” says the director. “I was massively influenced by that. So erstwhile I speech astir Poltergeist, what I mean is the home circumstances and the warmth of the family. And erstwhile I speech astir Seven, what I mean is the dark, investigative space and the secrets that beryllium down it. And they are 2 aspects wrong 2 antithetic tram lines, but 2 places that I emotion and I'm trying to bring them unneurotic successful halfway court.”

Cronin points retired that the movies helium writes are ever astir household – adjacent if they impact resurrected corpses oregon Deadite infestations. As helium puts it, there’s thing astir “the fearfulness of the domestic” that appeals to him. In the lawsuit of his Mummy movie, it’s a communicative astir “people being pulled unneurotic and torn isolated by thing horrific that comes into their world.” He points to David Fincher’s Seven arsenic an illustration of a movie that is not lone a classical thriller, but besides 1 that does the enactment to physique up its characters and their world.

“I've ever enjoyed watching genre movies that enactment you into a satellite that has this acquainted quality,” helium says. “As superb arsenic [Seven] is, it would astir apt beryllium little bully without the 2 oregon 3 scenes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt astatine home. The small meal enactment they person is truthful important, and the information that it shows they're trying to beryllium upwardly mobile and yet the bid is rattling extracurricular the window. … So adjacent successful a movie that you deliberation is conscionable each probe and each of these brainsick moments and these reveals, really it is underpinned by the spot of those relationships. … The location is ever the astir invaluable mode of being capable to necktie your communicative down to thing that everybody has a connective narration with.

“So the blending of enigma and fearfulness with the household that we autumn successful emotion with was the astir appealing happening to me.”

A Bigger Draw Than a Fantasy Monster

Cronin of people did his probe erstwhile prepping for his instrumentality connected The Mummy, watching galore of the films connected the taxable that person travel earlier successful summation to diving into real-life humanities mummy culture. His extremity successful presumption of presenting the iconography of accepted mummy stories was to basal the movie connected aspects of existent civilization and past alternatively than the older films. Which doesn’t mean helium doesn’t person an appreciation for those films.

“I'm drawn towards the fearfulness of the other,” helium says, “which, erstwhile you spell each the mode backmost to the archetypal [1932 Boris Karloff] movie, that thought of thing that's existing successful the satellite that isn't rather what it seems to be… I deliberation that was astir apt a bigger gully than a phantasy monster actually. That determination was a grounded prime to it, which again, I ever look for that. And if I tin crushed the communicative successful immoderate way, past it allows maine to get rather elaborate with really the panic and the vigor of the fearfulness that plays retired arsenic we determination forward. So I deliberation that was 1 of the touchpoints for maine – conscionable leaning into that different thing, that uncanny thing, that steps retired of the shadows and is determination with a intent arsenic well.”

And portion probe and humanities accuracy is important for Cronin, helium stresses that he’s besides not successful the concern of making a “thesis.”

“My extremity is I'm ever wanting to marque truly entertaining movies for a wide assemblage and a planetary release, and devour popcorn and portion soda and person a bully time,” helium says. “But the authenticity does substance to me.”

Part of the process past is finding, arsenic Cronin puts it, “gaps” successful a taxable wherever helium tin “wiggle my mode into and find a antithetic mode of presenting something.” In the lawsuit of his Mummy movie, it sounds similar 1 country Cronin wiggled his mode into – possibly the mode a worm would wiggle its mode into a corpse, oregon possibly adjacent the mode a scarab would wiggle its mode retired of a mummy – was successful the existent crushed down mummification.

“We each person a framework of notation for possibly wherefore the large and the bully oregon the affluent and the celebrated were mummified successful those times,” says Cronin. “But what astir the mummification processes and purposes we haven't heard about? … I'll spell and hunt astir the things possibly we don't cognize capable about, oregon instrumentality inspiration from thing [that’s] a small unspoken, and past spell and get truly originative with that.”

And truthful it was this conception that Cronin sparked to erstwhile processing the movie – what if this mummy wasn't a pharaoh oregon a king? What if it was an mundane person?

“And what if that idiosyncratic was needed for thing else?” helium teases.

The Mummy and the Future

Bearing successful caput that typically there’s nary specified happening arsenic a franchise oregon a sequel until the archetypal introduction successful a bid makes money, the question indispensable beryllium asked: Could Lee Cronin’s The Mummy yet pb to Lee Cronin’s The Mummy Part 2… and beyond? After all, fearfulness mega-producers Jason Blum and James Wan are down this film, and they haven’t precisely been shy astir franchising their films retired successful the past.

“One of the things I emotion astir moving with New Line is however down to Earth they are process-wise,” says the filmmaker. “And 1 of the things Dave Neustadter, who's an exec implicit there, would ever speech astir [is they] fto the assemblage decide. As in, we marque a large movie and past the imaginable is ever there. And you could person a movie successful your caput oregon beingness successful your mind, and if the movie doesn't chopped done with an audience, past each those sequels disappear.”

That said, Cronin does deliberation The Mummy has franchise potential.

“Because it's astir a curse. It's astir acheronian history,” helium explains. “And not lone is determination the household that we person successful our communicative and the characters that beryllium earlier them, there's besides the ripples that could spell guardant from what they acquisition successful the movie. But also, if you deliberation astir discoveries that are made successful Egypt and successful Egyptian culture, which are inactive being made each the time… by establishing this acheronian history, by establishing this story, by establishing this lore, there's nary uncertainty that it could beryllium successful different places and impact different people. Ultimately the occurrence of the movie volition determine that, but determination is simply a bigger beingness determination successful the background.”

Lee Cronin's The Mummy volition beryllium released connected April 17, 2026.

Talk to Scott Collura connected Twitter astatine @ScottCollura, oregon perceive to his Star Trek podcast, Transporter Room 3. Or bash both!