Tom Cruise In Talks To Lead THE MUMMY Reboot

A few years ago, Tom Cruise was attached to produce and star in a Van Helsing reboot from Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. That project ultimately ended up never happening, and while Kurtzman and Orci have since parted ways, Kurtzman is now one of the minds behind reimagining Universal's monster movies into a new connected cinematic universe. First up on that slate is a reboot of The Mummy, which Kurtzman is going to direct himself, and now, according to Variety, Tom Cruise is in talks to play the lead role in that film.

I guess Cruise really wants to work with Kurtzman on one of these monster movies. Cruise has been one of the biggest movie stars in the world for the past thirty years, and I'm a little shocked that he'd be interested in becoming a puzzle piece in a studio's big cinematic universe plan. Aside from The Color of Money, he's only starred in sequels of franchises he launched himself (Mission: Impossible, Jack Reacher), and he's one of the rare Hollywood players with enough star power to still get projects greenlit based on his involvement alone. It's honestly a little disheartening to see him jump into a project like this because I think he's much more of an interesting actor than that, and even though I obviously don't know the direction they're taking this Mummy reboot, I can't help but be disappointed that he's squandering the opportunity to make more films like Edge of Tomorrow instead.

Cruise was aiming to reunite with Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman on a sci-fi movie called Luna Park, but now that Liman has taken the director's chair on Gambit, Cruise apparently has a hole in his schedule before he starts filming Mission: Impossible 6 that could be filled by this reboot.

Jon Spaihts (Prometheus, Doctor Strange) wrote the screenplay for The Mummy, which is set in the present day. Unfortunately, that's all we know about the film for sure. There was some talk a while back about how the newly-rejuvenated Universal Monster movies will lean more toward the action-adventure genre than horror, but then Kurtzman tried to clarify that they will still have horror elements to them. Last we heard, this movie might feature a female mummy.

What do you think about Cruise playing the lead in this film? The Mummy reboot is set for release on March 24th, 2017.