It’s a new world of Gods and Monsters. After years of discussion and speculation from fans regarding Universal’s proposed shared monster universe, the first fruits of that labor have been unwrapped. Director Alex Kurtzman‘s initial outing is next summer’s The Mummy, a scary adventure film set in modern day, starring Tom Cruise. On Thursday, Universal released a poster, and a teaser to the trailer that will air this Sunday night during The Walking Dead. So far, not much to go on, but we have a few takeaways. Watch the trailer above and check out the poster below.
The first thing the poster immediately establishes is that this isn’t like the 1932 original starring Boris Karloff — a movie where the actual bandaged mummy is only onscreen for a few moments. Nor is it like the 1999 Brendan Fraser outing, which was definitely a much more swashbuckling adventure, also taking place in the 1930s. Here we have the ancient world of a sarcophagus surrounded by the modern hull of a cargo plane. Something very clearly has been unearthed that shouldn’t have been disturbed.
While I think teasers for trailers are beyond silly, we can glean a few things from the 15 seconds of footage released. The tone already appears much more akin to horror, albeit with an action movie vibe. The titular monster in this particular iteration is a princess, played by Star Trek Beyond and Kingsman: The Secret Service star Sofia Boutella. She clearly has a lot of power, both grand (as in the cloud descending at the end of the tease), and more personal (I’m assuming the multiple-eye thing has to do with her ability to control and manipulate minds).
We’ll find out more on Sunday night, but so far, we’re pretty intrigued by what this movie could mean for the future of a shared monster universe.
Don’t stay mum! Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Images: Universal
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!
