A new video for Universal Pictures' The Mummy explores the legacy of the Dark Universe. In an age where it seems more and more like every major studio is trying to create their own kind of shared cinematic universe - in an attempt to replicate the success of Marvel Studios' Marvel Cinematic Universe - Universal's decision to bring back their most famous monsters in cinema history feels like one of the most viable. All of that starts this year with too, with Alex Kurtzman's reboot of The Mummy.
Starring Tom Cruise and Sofia Boutella, this new take on the classic property follows Cruise as a cursed military officer, who - after his unlikely survival of a devastating plane crash - finds himself the pawn in an ancient being's (Boutella) plans for reinvention and resurrection. While the film boasts some impressive, massive CGI-heavy set pieces too, Kurtzman and everyone involved in this new cinematic universe posits that often the darkest monsters, are the ones that come from within.
In anticipation of The Mummy's release next month as well, Universal Pictures has released a brand new companion featurette for the film. The video itself spends about two minutes diving into the history of the James Whale-directed/Boris Karloff-led, historic monster movies that many of these franchises are merely descendants of, including The Mummy. Check out the video for yourself in the space above.
All of this news comes just a couple days after Universal's big announcement of their Dark Universe cinematic plans for the coming years, which included the confirmed casting of both Javier Bardem as Frankenstein and Johnny Depp as The Invisible Man. In addition to those castings, though, the studio also confirmed that Beauty and the Beast director, Bill Condon, will be at the helm of their long-planned Bride of Frankenstein reboot, which is still in the midst of looking for its star.
Compared to say, Hasbro's planned cinematic universe or even Paramount's attempts to create both Transformers spin-offs and saga films, Universal's decision to mine from all of these classic properties again is, from just strategic and creative standpoints alone, an ingenious one. While all of the different films from the 1930s and 1940s that many of these new outings are directly pulling from, weren't always directly tied in with each other, they all had the same feel and style that made them feel like they all belonged within the same world as the other. Universal is just going ahead and making that an actual reality now.
In other words: depending on just how well The Mummy is received this summer, audiences may be about to witness one of the first post-MCU cinematic universes that actually works.
NEXT: Can Non-Superhero Cinematic Universes Work?
Source: Universal Pictures
