TL;DR
Warner Bros went gore-first on the Universal monster Universal could not franchise. Critics split. Audiences, so far, showed up in threes, not fives.
MSM Perspective
Deadline and Rotten Tomatoes frame the opening as Warner Bros clearing the low bar Universal's Dark Universe never could.
X Perspective
Horror X is arguing whether domestic body-horror works for The Mummy at all; Evil Dead Rise fans defend Cronin, Brendan Fraser loyalists do not.
Warner Bros and New Line opened Lee Cronin's Mummy reboot Friday to $5.2 million and a third-place finish behind Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Project Hail Mary. [1] Industry analysts project a $12 to $13 million opening weekend, the lowest for any Mummy title — beneath Tom Cruise's 2017 bomb and well under the Brendan Fraser trilogy that defined the franchise for a generation. [2]
The R-rated horror version, produced by James Wan's Atomic Monster and Jason Blum's Blumhouse, is the first Universal-monster reboot since the Dark Universe collapsed in 2017. Cronin, coming off Evil Dead Rise, relocated the story from Egyptian adventure to a domestic possession narrative set in Aswan. Rotten Tomatoes aggregated 45 percent positive from 125 critics; Metacritic scored 46 from 22, indicating "mixed or average." Audiences polled by CinemaScore handed it a C+. [3]
Deadline's Gregory Nussen called the film "noxious and gnarly" but "protracted and exceedingly hampered by imitation," citing borrowed beats from Evil Dead, The Exorcist, and Hereditary. [4] The New York Post's Johnny Oleksinski scored it 1.5 of 4, calling it "just 'The Exorcist' with gauze." The Guardian gave it two stars of five. [3]
Production cost $22 million net after Irish tax credits, per Deadline tracking. [2] A Brendan Fraser-led Mummy sequel is already in development at Universal. Warner Bros, in the meantime, got the first reboot to reach theaters — and a mixed verdict for the trouble. [4]
-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles
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