After his critically acclaimed performance on FX’s hit series “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” Courtney B. Vance has signed on to star in Universal’s The Mummy, reports Heat Vision.
Tom Cruise is starring in the film, along with Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis and Jake Johnson.
The Mummy is being directed by Alex Kurtzman and is planned as the first feature in a series of interconnected monster movies as the studio hopes to build a cinematic universe out of its vault of classic creature features.
The storyline is set in the modern day with Cruise’s character to be a special forces soldier (or former soldier). Vance will play an Army colonel in the film.
Two weeks details were revealed with shots of Cruise on set:
Cruise plays Navy Seal Tyler Colt who goes on a mission in the Iraqi desert to find a group of terrorists hiding out in a bunker.
However their prey turn out to be mere grave robbers who have all magically died, and when they go inside the bunker Tyler and his team also succumb to some mystical forces out of their control, which is when they realise they are actually in an ancient tomb.
While his men end up turning on each other, Cruise’s character is the only one make it all the way deep within the tomb alive and find an ominous black iron sarcophagus.
After he tries to open it he is stabbed in the palm and his mind is cursed with visions of Ashurbanipal, King of Assyria, more informally known as The Mummy.
Universal is planning an Avengers-style universe, which means we should expect Cruise to appear in other tie-ins down the road. We should get another Van Helsing after we see Frankenstein, and his Bride, the Wolf Man, the Creature From the Black Lagoon and even the Invisible Man back in theaters. (There’s talk of Scarlett Johansson toplining the Creature From the Black Lagoon reboot with the studio targeting Angelina Jolie Pitt for the leading role in Bride of Frankenstein.)
The film will be unwrapped on June 9, 2017.
