Long before audiences got a proper look at “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy,” the writer/director‘s fiendish new film was already being stalked by rumors. There were early whispers online that its first reported title (“The Resurrected”) had been changed by Warner Bros. because the project was in trouble. Then, Universal announced that Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz would soon return to its “The Mummy” franchise from the ’90s, inviting even more errant speculation for Cronin. 

“It was a really, really irritating time, where there was just a bunch of fake shit being talked about with this movie, which had no grounding whatsoever,” he told IndieWire, ahead of “The Mummy” hitting theaters on April 17. “There was all this noise, going, ‘Oh, my God, they’re changing the title because the movie sucks.’ And it’s like, no, movies often have code words — to protect them.”

Typical genre chatter quickly evolved into a sea of snarky memes on social media, as various amateur critics began the hasty work of embalming a film they’d never seen. What was said on the internet didn’t have much to do with the real movie that Cronin made, but even as the gossip grew louder and more far-fetched, the emerging auteur didn’t speak out.

“James Wan went to the bathroom — he went for a piss — at a screening and there were headlines, like ‘James Wan walks out,” said Cronin, still incredulous over that particular piece of misinformation involving his film’s producer. “We don’t respond to any of that because it’s just noise. But I knew that people were going to have preconceived notions about our film.” 

For Cronin, the right next step was never going to be an editorial correction or a defensive PR strategy. Consensus would have to come through the work itself. From Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, New Line Cinema, and Wicked/Good, “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is a viscerally upsetting, wildly funny, and at times surprisingly emotional reimagining of a core horror concept. 

Set in both Egypt and Albuquerque, New Mexico, Cronin’s wonderfully inventive script drags one of cinema’s oldest tropes out of its sarcophagus and into a modern American home. When Katie Cannon (Natalie Grace), the daughter of a foreign journalist living in Cairo, disappears without a trace, her family is left in shambles. Eight years later, dad Charlie (Jack Reynore), mom Larissa (Laia Costa), grandma Carmen (Verónica Falcón), and siblings Sebastian (Shylo Molina) and Maud (Billie Roy) are shocked when Katie… or at least, a something resembling Katie… finally returns.

“I always knew that the movie itself would answer all of the questions that people had,” Cronin said. “And I knew I could take that chance to smash any of their other expectations.” 

Cronin’s confidence was roundly rewarded at the world premiere in Los Angeles, where he watched “The Mummy” with a real crowd last week. The writer/director received ferocious applause at the end of a few extra-gnarly scenes (keep your eyes on those nail clippers, everyone!), and later described witnessing that warm reaction with an overdue sense of joy. “Seeing it with an audience and seeing the humor connect, and then also feeling people squirm in their seats and shout and scream and laugh, that is always, always fun.” 

Even putting its rumor-laden press cycle aside, “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” was hard-won. This fresh take on the tattered monster is startlingly personal for Cronin, with some of the movie’s nastiest images and ideas rooted in his real grief. The filmmaker told IndieWire that, despite having limited interest in its core IP, “The Mummy” afforded Cronin a special opportunity to process the passing of his mother — who died the same day he finished his last film, “Evil Dead Rise.”

“She passed away that morning suddenly,” Cronin said. “So, it was a real shocker and she never got to see that movie. ‘The Mummy’ is a bit of a response to that.” 

What immediately followed that tragic loss for Cronin was the surreal, administrative side of burials. Hospital calls, caskets, and more funeral logistics demanded his and his family’s attention at a time when they were already overwhelmed. One detail, in particular, lodged itself in the filmmaker’s brain, inspiring a ludicrous scene that’s maybe the best in “The Mummy.”

“My brother came up to me, because I was doing a bit of ringing with the undertaker and dealing with the hospital and all that, and he said, ‘Mom always said she wanted to have a wake, but please make sure she has her false teeth in,’” Cronin said. “And to have to make that phone call, to ring somebody and go, ‘Don’t forget my dead mother’s false teeth when you bring her home,’ is one of the weirdest phone calls I’ve ever had to make. It haunted me, but I put it in the movie.’”

That story feeds directly into one of his latest film’s most memorable recurring images. “Really, that whole plot line around teeth is a tip of the cap to my mom and her wake as well,” he said. “All these things come from a really personal place. They’re not just like, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be creepy if—’ they’re always coming from some experience or something that troubles me a little bit.”

That mix of personal sorrow and pitch-black creative invention is a key reason “The Mummy” works as well as it does. Cronin neither approached the property like a dutiful steward, nor as a fanboy genuflecting before a sacred horror text. Instead, the writer/director admits he had “no interest” in making a mummy movie. “But that was actually part of what drew me into it,” he said. 

What intrigued Cronin most was the chance to reinvent a monster that has often been treated as more icon than character. “There’s a chance to play around with lore in a different way, and also a mummy being somewhat of a blank canvas that you can then put horrific traits into because it’s not Dracula,” he said. “It’s its own thing. It is kind of like a blank space.”

That gave Cronin room to tunnel away from familiar Halloween iconography and toward something stranger — ultimately, exploring a domestic nightmare in a rural home where an ancient Egyptian evil has seeped into the architecture of an already traumatized family. Cronin wanted to keep the arid atmosphere associated with his creature’s origins, but refused to trap the entire story in a tomb. “I knew that I wanted to bring the mummy home,” he said. “And ever since I saw ‘Breaking Bad,’ I have loved that New Mexico feel. That color palette fits my sensibilities a lot.”

Cronin also wanted his ambitious script’s cultural intersections to feel specific rather than decorative, weaving together Egyptian lore, Catholic faith, and a tense martial dynamic with unusual care. “I’m really proud that this film starts in Arabic,” he said, describing a scene that introduces several other characters whose purpose in the plot is too essential to spoil. 

That attention to detail extends far beyond the surface for Cronin. The Irish filmmaker described an extensive research process that included surveying everything from North African visual references, which are thousands of years old — to the preserved “bog bodies” currently housed in Dublin’s National Museum. “We were actually able to go and look at bodies there,” he said. “But those were all very tanned and leathery, which wasn’t the route I wanted to go with Katie. We had to look a lot.”

During his 65-day shoot, Cronin dug into performances and storytelling minutiae with equal focus. “Authenticity was vital,” he said, explaining how he worked closely with cast members to help choose songs and even snacks that fit their characters. The director also pointed out a soda bottle that’s only glimpsed in passing but was heavily considered, as almost nothing in “The Mummy” was allowed to feel “random.” 

That authorial control helps explain why the movie carries Cronin’s name in the title. “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is a marketing move that might sound a little grandiose on paper, but it also smartly continues the trend of studios backing individual auteurs as if they are brands. The filmmaker was candid about the pressure that creates, and also shared why he accepted it here.

“It wasn’t my idea,” Cronin said. “When it was proposed to me, I said, ‘You’re going to have to give me the weekend to think about this.’ And then I realized that very smart people who are more experienced and more successful than me really believed in it. It was an affirmation that they believed in me and it gave me a great confidence in approaching the movie.” He continued, “My fingerprints are in every single corner of this film. Nothing was left to chance.”

That meticulousness snaps into crystal-clear focus when Cronin talks about process. Both a severe planner and a gleeful instinctualist, the filmmaker’s method to movie-making sounds like contradiction in terms — until he explains it. Cronin rewrote constantly during production (“I probably delivered new pages three times a week,” he said), but he always did so in search of a sharper style rather than structural panic. Sometimes that meant inventing a fresh line minutes before cameras rolled on a sequence that involved major setpieces. “I just went up to [an actor] one day and said, ‘What if you say, “Hey, Charlie, you want to feast on me?”’ And she went, ‘Yeah! And then I’ll say, ‘Taste it.’’ It was like, ‘Boom, let’s go get it.’”

Even more surprising is the fact that Cronin and cinematographer Dave Garbett captured the film without a shot list. “We had no shot list on any given day, ever,” Cronin said. “We just went in and followed our noses.” That method sounds eerily like a curse from an ancient pre-production god, but Cronin honors it as a complete artistic philosophy. “We’d know what the operating principle we were after was,” he said. “So, we’d always know at least what it was that we needed to achieve.” The result is a film that feels both richly designed and thrillingly alive — with a delightfully intelligent composition that never calcifies into anxiety. 

Bucking horror norms associated with other mummies, Cronin was even emboldened by light. “I was confident enough that I could scare people in the daylight,” he said. “That I didn’t just need to use shadows and darkness as frequently as maybe I had in the past, because I was going to be able to freak you out even with all that beautiful sun coming through the windows.”

Cronin’s diligence was eventually matched by a brutal post-production process. At one point, the assembly cut of “The Mummy” ran three hours and 45 minutes. “We went on a hell of a journey to get it down,” he said. Editor Bryan Shaw spent months reworking rhythm and tone to let the film breathe. “All we did was experiment and play and push and pull,” Cronin said.

The result is a horror movie that feels deeply considered without ever becoming stiff. “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” understands the value of a nasty gag or stomach-churning reveal. And that creeping green hue outside the window pairs perfectly with the recognizable pain of a family argument that hits just as hard as a monster attack waiting around the corner.

Asked what advice he would give young filmmakers trying to find their voice, Cronin offered an answer that was revealing in its own right. “Focus in on a small number of movies that inspire you and get to know them so intimately that they form part of your language,” he said. “Because if you love them, then that should be the language that you speak.” Rumors be damned.

From Warner Bros., “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is in theaters on Friday, April 17.