Tom Cruise is gearing up to take on The Mummy. Variety has the news, reporting that the three-time Academy Award nominee is the first cast member to board director Alex Kurtzman’s contemporary take on the classic monster. The plan is for this new Mummy film to lead into Universal Pictures’ planned “shared universe” of monster movies.
The Mummy offers a modern take on the legend that has endured since the dawn of man. Alex Kurtzman is set to direct the film from a script by Jon Spaihts (Prometheus). The Mummy reboot is set for release on March 24, 2017 with another Untitled Universal Monster Movie set to follow it on March 30, 2018.
Although Tom Cruise’s Mummy role has not yet been revealed, it’s worth nothing that the star was previously eyeing the Universal Monsters cinematic universe with plans to headline a Van Helsing feature.
It wasn’t long ago that word broke that The Mummy might feature a female version of the title monster. According to recent reports, the film is currently casting for the possibilities of both male and female versions.
The Mummy was made famous on the big screen by Boris Karloff in Karl Freund’s 1932 feature. Subsequent sequels to the original The Mummy saw Tom Tyler (who played Captain Marvel/Shazam in the original 1941 serials) and later Lon Chaney Jr. playing a different mummy than the one Karloff played. Stephen Sommers’ more recent The Mummy and The Mummy Returns films set Arnold Vosloo in the title role. Jet Li then played he villain in Rob Cohen’s The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.
Tom Cruise starred earlier this year in Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. He’s planning to reprise his Ethan Hunt role for another sequel and is set to return as Jack Reacher in next year’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Edward Zwick is taking the director’s chair for the sequel, which is targeted to hit the big screen October 21, 2016.
