Lee Cronin's “The Mummy” trades Tom Cruise-era action for sheer terror — preview the frightening new trailer
Lee Cronin's “The Mummy” trades Tom Cruise-era action for sheer terror — preview the frightening new trailer
Shania RussellWed, February 18, 2026 at 7:01 PM UTC
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Natalie Grace in 'Lee Cronin's The Mummy' and Sofia Boutella in 2017's 'The Mummy'
Warner Bros. Pictures; Universal Pictures
Get ready to witness a terrifying new take on a classic monster.
Lee Cronin's The Mummy won't be going the route of the 1999 Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz classic, a crowd-pleasing action-adventure romp. Nor will it fully embrace action like the 2017 Tom Cruise-led remake. This time around, the ancient tomb holds nothing but sheer terror.
The new trailer for the upcoming horror flick, which hails from the Evil Dead Rise filmmaker Lee Cronin, promises a deeply unsettling reimagining of the classic property. The film tracks the reappearance of a young girl named Katie, who disappeared in the desert without a trace. Eight years later, she suddenly reappears — but what should be a joyful reunion "quickly turns into a living nightmare," per the official logline.
"What was our daughter doing in a 3000-year-old sarcophagus?" her father (Jack Reynor) wonders. But uh, based on those terrifying images, he might be better off without an answer to that question.
The trailer offers a glimpse at Katie after her return, wordless with twisted limbs and eerie expressions. In one shot, we see her wrappings being unpeeled. When she finally does speak, she delivers an awful message: "Don't worry, Grandma. It's fun to be dead."
Natalie Grace as Katie in 'Lee Cronin's The Mummy'
Warner Bros. Pictures
The new standalone film offers a huge tonal shift from the mummy-centric movies that came before. The original 1932 film, The Mummy, starring Boris Karloff, followed a mummified ancient Egyptian priest who unleashes a powerful curse after he's accidentally resurrected. Decades later, the property spawned the late-'90s reboot with Fraser and Weisz (due for another sequel in 2028) and then the ill-received 2017 action reboot with Cruise.
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Cronin's take, while not directly related to the prior films, doesn't appear to have much in common with those titles other than its undead focus. But it is very much in line with the recent series of Blumhouse-produced films that have been reviving Universal Classic Monsters, including the Elisabeth Moss-fronted psychological thriller The Invisible Man and last year's Wolf Man.
A scene from 'Lee Cronin's The Mummy'
Warner Bros. Pictures
Cronin promised this would be the case when he signed on to direct the movie in 2024. "This will be unlike any Mummy movie you ever laid eyeballs on before," he said at the time. "I’m digging deep into the earth to raise something very ancient and very frightening."
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One look at Katie's mummified face proves that Cronin wasn't kidding! The upcoming horror flick, produced by Warner Bros.' New Line Cinema, Atomic Monster, and Blumhouse Productions, stars Reynor, Laia Costa, Verónica Falcón, Natalie Grace, and May Calamawy.
Lee Cronin's The Mummy is set to hit theaters on April 17, 2026. Watch the new trailer above.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
