“Lee Cronin’s The Mummy,” the Irish director’s folk horror reimagining of the classic monster property, will begin streaming on HBO Max on July 3 and make its linear HBO debut the following evening, Fourth of July, at 8 p.m. ET — giving the film a second life less than 11 weeks after it opened in theaters to a mixed reception.
The film was released in theaters on April 17 by New Line Cinema and stars Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, and Verónica Falcón. In the film, Reynor and Costa play a married couple who learn their daughter, missing for eight years, has been discovered in Egypt inside a sarcophagus. Once they bring her home, they realize something is deeply wrong with her.
The film opened with $13.5 million domestically on a $12 million budget, but a C+ CinemaScore and negative audience word of mouth caused it to fall out of the domestic top ten after just a month. It ultimately grossed $90.4 million worldwide on a budget in the mid-$20 million range. Critics were split, with the film landing around 45–47% on Rotten Tomatoes, though some reviews acknowledged it as a gore-heavy, tension-driven horror entry.
Cronin wrote and directed the project, with James Wan, Jason Blum, and John Keville producing. Blumhouse and Atomic Monster co-financed the film. The production follows a pattern similar to Blumhouse’s recent Universal monster reboots, including “The Invisible Man” and “Wolf Man,” attempting to return the Mummy to its horror roots rather than the action-adventure register of the 1999 Brendan Fraser films or the 2017 Tom Cruise entry.
Cronin’s appointment to the franchise came off the back of “Evil Dead Rise,” his 2023 horror sequel that earned strong reviews and solid box office. Fraser and Rachel Weisz are set to reunite for “The Mummy 4,” directed by Radio Silence’s Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, with that film scheduled for October 2027 — keeping the franchise alive on a separate track from Cronin’s version. To accompany the streaming debut, HBO Max will also add the three Brendan Fraser “Mummy” films and the 1959 Boris Karloff original on July 1.
