The Mummy: all the trailers, updates, and commentary for Universal’s resurrection of the classic film – The Verge The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts. 2017-06-13T19:39:29+00:00 https://www.theverge.com/rss/stream/15522081 https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/verge-rss-large_80b47e.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1 Rachel Becker <![CDATA[Here are some ways to make a mummy that Tom Cruise doesn’t cover in The Mummy]]> https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15794364/mummy-movie-tom-cruise-mummification-ancient-egypt-self-mummified-monks 2017-06-13T15:39:29-04:00 2017-06-13T15:39:29-04:00

The latest cinematic iteration of The Mummy takes off when antiquities thief Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) unearths an ancient Egyptian tomb - in Iraq. Ignoring the portents of impending doom (and the fact that stealing antiquities is illegal and also wrong), Morton and his Army buddies unearth a sarcophagus. Inside lies the mummy Ahmanet, an undead pharaoh's daughter who was mummified alive and is royally pissed off about it. She comes back to life, psychically imprints on Morton, and wreaks havoc on London.

Unlike werewolves or vampires, mummies are creature-feature mainstays that actually do have real-world counterparts. That's why archaeolog …

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]]> Tasha Robinson <![CDATA[The Mummy would have been so much better if Tom Cruise were the villain]]> https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15785622/the-mummy-tom-cruise-dark-universe-franchise-villain 2017-06-13T09:30:02-04:00 2017-06-13T09:30:02-04:00

Spoilers ahead for the 2017 version of The Mummy - including end spoilers.

You learn a lot about movie protagonists from the first choice they make in a story. Films have to convey most of their characterization through dialogue and action, and the early choices are the ones that define a character's identity. Consider the first decisions made by Nick Morton, Tom Cruise's hapless antihero character in the misbegotten Universal Studios franchise-launcher The Mummy. The movie starts with him going AWOL from the Army to loot an ancient tomb. He nearly gets himself and a buddy killed with his lack of planning and basic observational skills. Out o …

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]]> Andrew Liptak <![CDATA[How many cinematic universes can Universal cinematically universe after Dark Universe?]]> https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/10/15757230/cinematic-universes-universal-dark-universe-the-mummy-film 2017-06-10T10:00:02-04:00 2017-06-10T10:00:02-04:00

The Mummy hits theaters this weekend, and it's clear that it's more than just a movie: it's Universal Studios' attempt to jumpstart a Marvel-style cinematic franchise that will bring together its various classic monster properties under the Dark Universe banner. It's an ambitious goal, but there are already signs that it's coming out of the gate on shaky feet. On the off chance that this effort flops, Universal has plenty of options to try again.

The cinematic-universe framework sounds really good on paper. Done right, it theoretically creates a massive, interconnected, immersive universe that in turn creates a built-in fanbase and revenue. …

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]]> Tasha Robinson <![CDATA[The Mummy review: a universe of expectations hampers an otherwise fun creature feature]]> https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/7/15757164/the-mummy-film-review-tom-cruise-dark-universe-sofia-boutella 2017-06-07T12:01:05-04:00 2017-06-07T12:01:05-04:00

"Welcome to a new world of gods and monsters," Russell Crowe solemnly intones midway through The Mummy, a modern action remake of Universal Pictures' 1932 monster-movie classic. It's a slight variant on a line from Bride Of Frankenstein, another Universal classic, and it's consciously presented as a tagline for the studio's new "Dark Universe" franchise. To date, Universal has planned out eight films in the series, in an attempt to forge a modern money-printing machine like the Marvel Cinematic Universe out of its legacy films. Crowe's character, an update on Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Henry Jekyll, is presented as a gateway to that univer …

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]]> Megan Farokhmanesh <![CDATA[Universal names its Marvel-inspired monster movies Dark Universe]]> https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/22/15676336/universal-monsters-mummy-dark-universe-bride-of-frankenstein 2017-05-22T14:21:07-04:00 2017-05-22T14:21:07-04:00

Universal Pictures is bringing its roster of classic movie monsters back to the forefront with its newly named Dark Universe series - the long-promised web of films kicking off with The Mummy this summer. The next film in the series to hit theaters will be Bride of Frankenstein on Feb. 14th, 2019.

Universal has ditched its previous plans to release a Dark Universe movie in 2018 and will instead focus on the 2019 Bride of Frankenstein, which will be directed by Beauty and the Beast's Bill Condon. There are no details on who will play the titular role, though Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley called the movie a story about "a very mod …

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]]> Megan Farokhmanesh <![CDATA[The Mummy trailer is selling an extended universe nobody asked for]]> https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/18/15658694/watch-the-mummy-trailer-tom-cruise 2017-05-18T14:01:24-04:00 2017-05-18T14:01:24-04:00

The latest and "final" trailer for The Mummy is flush with creepy special effects, Tom Cruise, and somewhat sadly, complete sound. It also boldly reminds viewers that we're not just looking at a single new film: this is just the first in an entire series of upcoming monster films.

"Witness the beginning of a dark universe," the trailer proclaims - possibly in reference to the rise of the film's Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), but more likely an overt nod to the "Universal Monsters" world-building the movie is doing. While Cruise may ostensibly be the hero in The Mummy, Russell Crowe's Dr. Jekyll acts as a sort of Nick Fury for a whole me …

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]]> Sean O'Kane <![CDATA[The messed-up Mummy trailer is mutating faster than Universal Pictures can keep up]]> https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2016/12/20/14028240/mummy-reboot-bad-trailer-dmca-takedown-audio-meme 2016-12-20T15:09:48-05:00 2016-12-20T15:09:48-05:00

We live in an age of reboots and cinematic universes. And yet I had no idea that Hollywood was rebooting The Mummy until this morning, when the IMAX YouTube channel uploaded a Mummy trailer in which the sound was hilariously butchered. It was a pretty fantastic goof.

Instead of riding the gift of a spontaneous publicity wave for an unnecessary reboot, Universal Pictures is now doing The Dumb Thing and issuing DMCA takedown notices to stop the trailer from spreading. But the folks at Universal Pictures are forgetting one of the most beautiful and terrifying things about the internet: you can't stop it, you can only hope to contain it.

Almost …

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]]> Rich McCormick <![CDATA[Tom Cruise is accidentally hilarious in this broken Mummy reboot trailer]]> https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/20/14021586/tom-cruise-mummy-trailer-broken-sound 2016-12-20T02:25:35-05:00 2016-12-20T02:25:35-05:00

Universal Pictures' Mummy reboot is one of many attempts by production companies to start a new cinematic universe, but Universal seems to be taking its new film to an exciting new place: one with no sound effects. The first half of the IMAX trailer for the Mummy, originally uploaded last week and spotted by Waypoint's Austin Walker before being pulled by IMAX, inexplicably features no background music, foley, or other sound apart from the actors' voice tracks.

That means that the exploding planes, swarms of birds, and smashing windows shown in the action-packed trailer are totally inaudible. In Universal Pictures' horrible new universe, To …

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]]> Kwame Opam <![CDATA[How Tom Cruise’s The Mummy will launch a Marvel-like reboot of the Universal Monsters]]> https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/5/13848462/the-mummy-universal-monsters-cinematic-universe-explained 2016-12-05T17:31:10-05:00 2016-12-05T17:31:10-05:00

In the age of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, every studio wants a behemoth self-referential franchise to call its own. Last night, we got a look at Universal's effort: a reboot of the classic Universal Monsters films, beginning with The Mummy. The lurching bandaged corpse of the past has been replaced with Tom Cruise, an ancient female mummy bent on global destruction, and an extravagant special effects budget.

Universal is serious about this franchise push, going so far as to lay groundwork in the very first trailer. "Welcome," says Russell Crowe, "to a new world of gods and monsters." But how does the studio plan to adapt eight-year-old p …

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]]> Bryan Bishop <![CDATA[The Mummy’s first trailer is Mission: Impossible with a supernatural twist]]> https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/4/13837056/the-mummy-first-trailer-tom-cruise 2016-12-04T21:16:34-05:00 2016-12-04T21:16:34-05:00

Marvel may have kicked off the current expanded cinematic universe craze, but the concept arguably started back with the classic Universal Pictures horror films - and the studio is hoping that the first trailer for The Mummy will be the beginning of a new run of interconnected movies. Starring Tom Cruise and directed by Alex Kurtzman - best known as the writer of movies like Star Trek Into Darkness and Transformers - the new Mummy looks to be as much an action film as anything else, with Cruise stuck in a death-defying sequence right at the top, and facing various moments of peril and adventure throughout the clip. Star Trek Beyond's Sofia B …

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