Horror fans, grab your bandages—the latest reimagining of Universal's oldest monster franchise is finally here, and it's splitting audiences right down the sarcophagus.
Lee Cronin's The Mummy, a 2026 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Lee Cronin, opened in U.S. theaters on April 17 via Warner Bros. Pictures. The film reunites the Evil Dead Rise director with producers James Wan (Atomic Monster) and Jason Blum (Blumhouse) for a gory, decidedly un-Brendan-Fraser take on the bandaged-monster mythos.
A Mummy Movie Unlike Any Other
Forget swashbuckling adventure. This Mummy is a bug-eating, skin-ripping, and occasionally quite silly gross-out that couldn't be further from either the Boris Karloff originals or the Brendan Fraser-fronted action-adventure series. Shot between Ireland and Spain, the film stars Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, and May Calamawy as an expat American family shattered when their young daughter, Katie, vanishes in Egypt—only to be found alive eight years later, sealed inside an ancient tomb and barely human.
Cronin, who famously turned down an Evil Dead Rise sequel to make this, told Variety the project became deeply personal. Some of the ideas for the film came from Cronin's real-life grief while dealing with the death of his mother, who died the same day he finished Evil Dead Rise (2023).
The Box Office Story
The numbers tell a measured-but-not-disastrous tale. Lee Cronin's The Mummy opened in third place domestically with an estimated $13.5 million, landing behind The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Project Hail Mary. The Blumhouse and Atomic Monster production made up some ground overseas with $17.5 million in ticket sales for a worldwide start of $34 million against a modest $22 million net budget.
That's a solid start for a mid-budget horror play — the new movie's budget is slightly smaller than Blumhouse's Wolf Man, which it outgrossed on debut.
What Critics and Audiences Are Saying
Here's where things get interesting—there's a real gap between audiences and critics. CinemaScore is C+, which is better than Blumhouse's The Wolf Man (C-) but under the pre-pandemic Invisible Man (B+) in its monster movie revamp. Audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is now at 77%, with critics disliking mummified children at 45%.
The pros haven't been kind. Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com gave the film two stars out of four, writing:
"There's just never a weight to that idea because these characters are just pawns in Cronin's game, his attempt to make you squirm as much as possible. You'll definitely squirm, but mostly out of boredom."
The Rotten Tomatoes consensus splits the difference:
"Director Lee Cronin's take on The Mummy injects some juicy gore and personal stakes into the classic horror setup, but the scares in this gross-out extravaganza get entombed by a padded running time."
The Bottom Line
Is this a hit? Kind of. Is it a flop? Definitely not. Lee Cronin's The Mummy has proven that Blumhouse's Universal Monster reboots aren't cursed at the box office—and with a strong 77% audience score suggesting better word-of-mouth than the critical drubbing implies, there's room for legs.
For horror fans craving something genuinely weird, gross, and emotionally raw, Lee Cronin's The Mummy might be worth the trip. Just don't expect Brendan Fraser to come swinging in with a rifle.
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