Before Brendan Fraser headlines The Mummy 4 in the summer of 2028, moviegoers were treated to a very different kind of Mummy film. This weekend saw the release of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, an R-rated body horror movie that looked to offer a fresh take on the property, specifically targeting horror fans. The genre has long been a reliable draw at the box office, withstanding multiple shifts in trends to routinely deliver hits. There was hope that perhaps Lee Cronin’s The Mummy could become the latest horror title to exceed expectations and break out at the multiplex, but that didn’t really happen.
According to Deadline, The Mummy is estimated to gross around $13 million domestically during its opening weekend. That’s good enough for third place, behind lucrative holdovers Project Hail Mary ($20.4 million) and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie ($35 million). When compared to other reimaginings of classic movie monsters, The Mummy was well behind 2020’s The Invisible Man ($28.2 million) but slightly ahead of Wolf Man ($10.8 million).
Will Lee Cronin’s The Mummy Have Legs at the Box Office?
Image Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Because Lee Cronin’s The Mummy had a production budget of just $22 million, the film isn’t going to go down as a box office bomb. That figure doesn’t include marketing and distribution costs, but it’s up to $34 million globally (via The Numbers), so it’s already made back its budget and more. Since the movie’s theatrical run has only just started, it’s well on pace to turn a profit. That said, the studio was probably hoping for a better showing. Heading into the weekend, some projections had The Mummy pegged for a debut in the range of $17-22 million, so a case can be made that the film underperformed a bit.
With that in mind, it’ll be interesting to see how The Mummy fares from here. While opening weekends are important, it can be argued that the real test for a film is how strong its legs are. In the past, there have been movies that overcame soft openings and ended their runs successfully. Others got off to strong starts and quickly fell off. The Mummy creative team was talking about the possibility of follow-ups ahead of the movie’s release, so it’ll need to maximize its return on investment as much as it can if that is to happen. Unfortunately, The Mummy may not be set up for long-term box office success.
While The Mummy should continue to have a corner on its target demographic (especially with Ready or Not 2 and They Will Kill You falling off), that may not be enough to help it truly cross over. Word of mouth is a bit mixed; after The Mummy received a 46% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, moviegoers gave it a C+ CinemaScore this weekend, so it’s not as if the movie is earning raves. Horror fans will probably still be inclined to check it out, but the marketplace is set to be dominated by music biopic Michael next weekend. Adding that high-profile newcomer to a theatrical landscape with Mario and Project Hail Mary means there may not be much money leftover for The Mummy.
Again, this isn’t the worst result for The Mummy. One of the reasons why horror movies continue to do so well is because studios do an excellent job of keeping costs in check, which was the case here. These kinds of movies don’t always have to break the bank in order to turn a profit. However, horror movies can also be frontloaded, meaning they make a majority of their money before a steep decline in subsequent weekends. If that happens with The Mummy, Warner Bros. may decide that a sequel isn’t worth the investment.
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