Tom Cruise's 15% Rotten Tomatoes Monster Movie Flop Unravels on a New Streaming Platform Next Month

Universal monsters are back in theaters right now thanks to Leigh Whannell's Wolf Man. The writer-director's second go at reimagining classic monsters after 2020's The Invisible Man hasn't fared as well as its predecessor critically or at the box office, but it could always be much worse. Before Whannell took the wheel with modernized spins on these legends of Hollywood terror, there was the Dark Universe, an attempt at creating a shared universe like the MCU for classic characters like Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman, thus returning to their cinematic roots. Despite landing serious star power, the effort crashed and burned with the much-maligned Tom Cruise-led The Mummy in 2017, marking both the official beginning and end of it all. Now, the film is coming to Hulu for those who want a look back at the entire history of Universal's monster movies.

The Mummy was developed as a reboot to recapture the success of the Brendan Fraser-led 1999 film and its sequels. Instead of the fun, action-adventure angle of the Fraser film, the Cruise-led effort attempted to bring back the horror with a darker tone overall and a new mummy by the name of Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella). The Mission: Impossible star plays Nick Morton, a soldier of fortune raiding tombs and selling the priceless artifacts within them until he and his partner run into trouble in the Middle East. During a confrontation gone south, Ahmanet is accidentally resurrected after thousands of years, beginning a reign of terror as she slowly restores her body. It falls to Morton to lay the malevolent Egyptian princess back to rest before London experiences the full might of her powers.

Cruise and Boutella were part of a much-ballyhooed team of Dark Universe stars who appeared together in a now-infamous cast photo alongside Javier Bardem, Russell Crowe, and Johnny Depp. Crowe took on the role of Dr. Henry Jekyll/Eddie Hyde in The Mummy, joining a cast that also featured Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance, Marwan Kenzari, and Javier Botet. All the talent combined with a crew made of director Alex Kurtzman and writers David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie, and Dylan Kussman couldn't save it from losing anywhere from $60-95 million at the box office due to a sky-high budget and marketing costs. The film also earned a dismal 15% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes with many fans similarly unenthused with a 35% score.

'The Mummy' Is About To Re-Emerge From Its Tomb

Fortunately, the 2017 film won't be the newest Mummy on the block for much longer. Following in the footsteps of The Invisible Man and Wolf Man, Evil Dead Rise director Lee Cronin has been tapped to direct a new film for Blumhouse and New Line Cinema. Cronin has also assured his take on the bandage-wrapped baddie will be "unlike any Mummy movie you ever laid eyeballs on before. I’m digging deep into the earth to raise something very ancient and very frightening." Plot details are being kept under wraps for now and no stars have been attached, but that might change before long given that it's dated for April 17, 2026.

In the meantime, The Mummy (2017) comes to Hulu on February 1. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on the biggest titles coming to streaming throughout the year.

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