I hate stories like this and will make more of an effort not to post about them because they do so much harm, but it feels necessary as The Mummy is meant to be the launch of Dark Universe. Early analysis is showing that Tom Cruise's action reboot will open at between $35M-$40M this weekend, which would have it falling below Wonder Woman's second week. Uh oh.
Well, this just won't do. Universal is banking a lot on The Mummy to be a hit, otherwise who knows what becomes of their ambitious star-studded plans. Besides Cruise, Russell Crowe, and Sofia Boutella they also have Johnny Depp attached to Invisible Man, Javier Bardem to Frankenstein, plus Bill Condon and possibly Angelina Jolie for Bride of Frankenstein. Not to mention Creature from the Black Lagoon and the Wolfman are projects in the works. But it means nothing if The Mummy doesn't perform, and early buzz from critics has not been good. At least, it hasn't been good enough to believe in strong word-of-mouth.
That said, these low numbers are domestic only. Internationally it may be a different story, and likely will be given Cruise's command of the box office globally. His most recent films have all performed extremely well....everywhere but here in the United States. It just seems that Universal may have put too much of their Dark Universe plans on front street before finding out if audiences are into it, and that could lead to an embarrassing situation.
For what it's worth, my review of The Mummy will be up at noon.
