Following reports that Lee Cronin's The Mummy—which had reportedly changed its title to The Resurrected—recently had some disastrous test screenings, Blumhouse and Warner Bros. have finally pulled back the curtain on the upcoming horror movie.
A poster and two first-look stills have been released today, and it's apparent the Evil Dead Rises filmmaker isn't making a traditional Mummy movie (it's also worth noting that several trusted insiders have disputed negative test screening reports).
Talking to IGN, Cronin said the "movie itself really is a mystery and it's a puzzle box," adding that this take is "coming from a very different place, and it's not even a reinvention of mummy lore; it's looking into darker places and doing something different with what we think we might already know."
"It's an insane mashup to suggest, but [this film is] almost one part Poltergeist and one part Seven, but put through my lens and the way that I like to entertain people," Cronin continued, saying "the horror of the domestic" is a big appeal, as is showing "people being pulled together and torn apart by something horrific that comes into their world."
It was recently revealed that The Mummy tells the story of the young daughter of a journalist who disappears without a trace in the desert. The shattered family is stunned when the girl suddenly reappears eight years later. But what should have been a joyful reunion quickly turns into a true nightmare.
"I'm drawn towards the fear of the other," the filmmaker noted, "which, when you go all the way back to the first [1932 Boris Karloff] movie, that idea of something that's existing in the world that isn't quite what it seems to be. I think that was probably a bigger draw than a fantasy monster actually."
"We all have a frame of reference for perhaps why the great and the good or the rich and the famous were mummified in those times. But what about the mummification processes and purposes we haven't heard about? I'll go and hunt about the things maybe we don't know enough about, or take inspiration from something [that’s] a little unspoken, and then go and get really creative with that," Cronin concluded.
It certainly sounds like he has a unique approach in mind for The Mummy, with a greater focus on the mummification process and the horror that ensues from such an act rather than a traditional "Mummy" serving as the main threat or villain.
Lee Cronin's The Mummy features a cast led by Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, and Veronica Falcón. It's set to be released in theaters on April 17, later this year.