Director Lee Cronin (“Evil Dead Rise”) didn’t think he would be making a movie about the iconic monster that is the mummy – until he realized that “there hasn’t been a truly terrifying version made before.”
“That drew my interest in, but as always, I needed to find a story,” shares Cronin about what made him want to do his latest horror film. “And once I did that, I started to get really engaged and involved with what this thing could become.”
In “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy,” the young daughter of a journalist disappears into the desert without a trace. Eight years later, the broken family is shocked when she is returned to them, as what should be a joyful reunion turns into a living nightmare. Produced by James Wan, Jason Blum and John Keville, the film stars Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, with Veronica Falcón.
Producer James Wan, whose horror hits include the “Saw,” “Insidious” and “Conjuring” franchises, also got excited by the idea of a frightening mummy. “There have been so many iterations of the Mummy along the way,” says Wan. “As long as cinema history, in a lot of ways. It’s such a great iconic character. So, I think it’s great that we are coming out with a scary version of this particular IP again.”
Jason Blum, whose Blumhouse Productions is responsible for such commercial and critical horror successes as “Paranormal Activity,” “Insidious,” “The Purge,” “Get Out,” “The Invisible Man,” and “M3GAN,” adds: “I think what sets the film [“Lee Cronin’s The Mummy”] apart is that initially, monster movies started out as scary movies and over time they grew big—to four quadrant family movies. We produced ‘The Invisible Man’ and that was one of the first to bring the heart. And what such movies originally set out to do, all of those stories were originally horror and over time, they grew into something else. And I think one thing that’s unique about this movie is that it’s taking this old legend and bringing it back to its roots, which was what the Mummy was, which is scary as hell.”
As Cronin mentioned, for him to really get into a new version of the Mummy, he needed to find his own story. “I wanted to tell something that had more than just an A narrative, but also had other things going on within the background,” says the filmmaker. “So, there is a big detective angle to this, which is maybe a little different to a conventional horror movie that you might watch, whilst also having a lot of the traditional haunted house elements at play.
“The movie in my mind as I approached it was some sort of combination between “Poltergeist” and “Se7en” – “Se7en” encapsulating the more hard-boiled detective side of things, and some of the darker body horror, too, and then “Poltergeist” in terms of the exceptional circumstances that are faced. And then with the family in this movie, “Poltergeist” was also a touchpoint for capturing the domestic relationships and also the heart that was in place between the family. I definitely wanted to mash up some really dark themes with some warmth. And I always think family is a great way into a story, especially a horror story, because it’s something that we can all identify with.”
New Line Cinema, Atomic Monster and Blumhouse Present, A Wicked/Good Production, A Lee Cronin Film: LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY. The film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, only in theaters and IMAX® in North America on April 17, 2026, and internationally beginning 15 April 2026. #LeeCroninsTheMummy
