Tom Cruise is in talks to join Universal’s reboot of The Mummy.
Sources say Universal has been looking for a big star to anchor the film, and is hoping Cruise will fill that role. Universal had no comment.
Alex Kurtzman is helming the film, which will be set in present day and is set for release on March 24, 2017. Jon Spaihts wrote the script although plot details are being kept deep in the tomb. Kurtzman, Chris Morgan and Sean Daniel are producing.
Universal’s The Mummy is the first film in a series of interconnected monster films. Universal hopes to build a cinematic universe out of its vault of classic creature features. Other potential films revolve around the characters of Dracula, Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, the Bride of Frankenstein, and vampire hunter Van Helsing.
Cruise was most recently seen in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. He was planning on reuniting with Doug Liman, for whom he recently wrapped 1980s drug movie Mena, for Luna Park but when Liman took on Fox’s Gambit, it left a space in his schedule for Mummy.
The movie will begin shooting mid-February. Cruise will then head back to the Mission: Impossible franchise for the sixth installment, which will shoot in later 2016. His other upcoming films include Jack Reacher: Never Go Back and Mena. He’s repped by CAA and Greenberg Glusker.
