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Blumhouse Productions has announced that Irish filmmaker Lee Cronin will write and direct a new version of The Mummy. The film is slated for a 2026 release, which can't come sooner. You see, Lee Cronin is an emerging powerhouse filmmaker who has built his entire career off of one terrifying act: digging holes. 

I'm not kidding you. Cronin's first feature film was an atmospheric A24 release called The Hole in the Ground. It centers on a mother and son who move into a house in a remote part of Ireland. The boy disappears down a hole in the ground near the home, only to return home seemingly unhurt. But as time goes on, his mother suspects that the boy who returned home to her isn't actually her son at all. The Hole in the Ground played with elements of Irish folklore to deliver a thoughtful meditation on the stresses of being a mother. After all, the only thing scarier than a giant sinkhole in your backyard is the idea that your shortcomings will lead to your failures as a parent. 

Next, Cronin wrote and directed Evil Dead Rise, an audacious new entry that introduced an element of emotional violence into the franchise through yet another hole in the ground. Evil Dead Rise brought an urban element to the Evil Dead series with its premise. An earthquake in Los Angeles cracks open a hidden room below the parking lot of an apartment complex, and a woman and her family discover a mysterious book called the Necronomicon. In order to defeat the demons in Evil Dead Rise, our heroine must come to terms with her fear of motherhood. Again, it's another story where Cronin uses an element of buried horror. Personally, I find it the scariest movie in the franchise. 

And this brings us to the upcoming Mummy movie. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Cronin stated that his 2026 Mummy film "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.” From this statement and Cronin's previous films, it's clear that the filmmaker will be sticking to his guns with the upcoming film and unearthing more terror. Given the role that archaeology plays in the previous Mummy films (I mean, you can't really have mummies without someone digging around in the sand), Cronin has spent his entire career thus far making the case for why he would kill it on The Mummy. 

The 2017 Mummy movie with Tom Cruise felt like a disaster. There were some beautifully gothic moments and visuals that hinted at a much better version of the film, one that wasn't so bogged down by strange action scenes. The decision to hire Cronin as director and writer is a promising sign for the upcoming film, because it's clear that Blumhouse sees why Cronin is a perfect fit for The Mummy specifically. Cronin has already proved that he can both play by the rules of an established universe and continue his wider examination of motherhood and the past, as evidenced by his stellar work on Evil Dead Rise. It's about time somebody in Hollywood gave him the keys to make the next horror blockbuster. 

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." We couldn't agree more, which is why we think you should check out horror aficionado Greg Silber's list of the best horror movies of all time. Or, if you've already seen those classics, check out our list of the most underrated horror movies from the past couple years. And if you've already seen all of those, Let us tell you what to look forward to (or dread) in Popverse's list of upcoming horror movies.