April 16, 2026 • 37 mins
White hot writer / director Lee Cronin joins me to talk all things Lee Cronin's The Mummy - from reinventing an iconic monster for modern horror audiences to why the genre is bigger, smarter and more ambitious than ever. We get into grief, guilt, mystery, spectacle, physical media, premium formats and where horror still has room to go next. Plus so much more!
If you’re into horror, filmmaking, movie theater culture, or just watching smart directors get deep about what makes genre storytelling actually work, this one’s for you.
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If you’re into horror, filmmaking, movie theater culture, or just watching smart directors get deep about what makes genre storytelling actually work, this one’s for you.
Let's go!
If you dig the show, subscribe, rate, and share - and tell your friend who's always stealing your streaming passwords.
📍 Watch now on YouTube or listen on your favorite podcast platform
🎧 Subscribe for more celeb interviews, streaming picks and pop culture deep dives!
🗣️ Want to be featured on the show? 📱 Leave a voicemail here!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
In this episode of pop Culture Weekly, I have Lee
Cronin on to discuss Lee Cronin's The Mummy.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Let's go Welcome to pop Culture Weekly with Kyle McMahon
from iHeartRadio your pop culture news, views, reviews and celebrity
interviews on all the movies, TV, music and pop culture
u Crab Weekly. Here's Kyle MCMAHONNTT.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Nan Nett, Hello, and welcome to pop Culture Weekly with
Kyle McMahon. I of course am Kyle McMahon, and this
is the show where we celebrate pop culture, question our
life choices, and occasionally unwrap something that absolutely should have
stayed buried. Today it is all about Lee Cronan's The Mummy.
(00:51):
I saw this and it is so good. It is
so scary. Lee Cronan is a genius, And you know
the Mummy. It's one of those characters that's basically been
rebooted like more times than all of our abilities to
make good decisions combined. You go all the way back
to the classic universal Monster era, you know, the original
(01:13):
The Mummy. They were like kind of slow, haunting and
tragic and kind of genuinely unsettling, and there were some
sequels and all that and then you know, you move
flash forward to the nineties, which was basically like what
if you know, this horror movie was also a roller coaster,
which honestly it's iconic.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
No notes.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I love those The Mummy movies. Those were like, you know,
the Mummy movies when I was a kid, and of
course I love the Mummy. Rye at Universal Studios. And
then we got the modern action version, which felt less
like The Mummy and more like Mission Sandstorm. But through
(01:58):
all of that, you know, somewhere along the way, we
kind of lost what makes the Mummy actually scary. You know,
it went from this horror franchise to something else, and
the Mummy it's not just a monster, you know, it's history.
It's something ancient, something cursed, something that was never supposed
(02:21):
to come back. And that's what makes this new version
Lee Cronin's The Mummy so freaking interesting because it feels
like we're going back to that idea. It's not, you know,
bigger just for the sake of being bigger, louder, but
it is more dark, it's more intimate, it's more uncomfortable,
(02:44):
the kind of horror that doesn't just jump out at you,
but it like kind of sits there waiting and then
you realize, oh, sh nikes, this is terrifying, which is exactly,
you know, for me, what I believe how the Mummy
movies should be. So let's hop right into it. I'm
(03:05):
talking with director writer Lee Cronin, who, if you've been
paying attention to the show or horror, he has already
proven that he knows how to take something familiar and
make it feel completely unhinged, but like in the best
way possible, you know what I mean. He's got a
real understanding I would say, of tension and atmosphere, but
(03:30):
more importantly, in my opinion, he knows how to make
horror feel personal, which is exactly what the Mummy needs,
because it's not. In my opinion, the Mummy shouldn't just
be this like spectacle. It really has to feel like
something is wrong, like something ancient is here in the present.
(03:52):
So I talk with Lee about stepping into a legacy
like the Mummy, what drew him to it, and how
you honor you know, all of the films that have
come before, but without being trapped by it, if that
makes sense, And how do you bring a character like
the Mummy back in a way that actually means something today.
(04:14):
So we're going to jump right into it here. He
is Lee Cronin. First of all, thank you so much
for speaking with me.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Lee.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I love your work, I love your career, and I
can't wait to talk about the Mummy. But I want
to go back first, if that's okay with you. Absolutely
my pleasure looking forward to our conversation. Awesome. So when
you look back before any of you know this, what
kind of filmmaker did you think that you would end
(04:46):
up being?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Oh wow, that's a good question, I guess because I'm
still on the journey, I suppose. Look, I was a
child of Amblin, definitely big Spielberg fan. My focus was
always on entertaining and engaging audiences in dark rooms, and
I think I was quite genre agnostic when I kind
(05:11):
of started out in terms of like what I like
to watch. I was a big, obviously big horror fan.
But you know, probably when it was really clicking for me,
when I was you know, like fifteen or whatever, and
be like I'm really going to do this, I would
be watching Reservoir Dogs over and over again and trying
to write flashy dialogue that way. So the influence is
kind of wax and way and as time goes by.
But I think my focus has always been on on
(05:34):
the spectacular, the event, whatever it might be, whether that's
a small, simple story and it's a story that captures
everybody's imagination in a particular way, or it's a big,
glossy four quadrant movie. You know, I love my family
films as well, So I don't know if I'm quite
answering what you've asked, which is who did I think
I'd be? But I guess I always hoped for big, noisy, loud,
(05:59):
splashy movies was the hope, and I'm trying to push
that direction as often as I can.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I love that. And you know you have talked before
in the past about being drawn to darker stories. What
is it about horror specifically? That kind of is your
I don't want to say your love language, but you're
you know, speaks to you, if you will, a very
dark love language.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
I think like there's a couple of aspects to it
that certainly drew me personally in One of them is
how it engages people. And that engagement for me came
through my observations and I was very small watching my
family and my siblings react to horror movies and thinking, WHOA,
And when you're the youngest, and there's a big age
(06:41):
gap in my family, when you're the youngest, you think,
so that's how you get people's attention, That's how you
get the grown ups attention. And I would somewhat be
the clown in my family, and you know, sometimes the
clown can tell a dark joke or do a dark thing.
So I was definitely drawn from that point of view
of like this, if you want to tell a story
and you want to move people in some way, like
(07:03):
you can be moved emotionally, you can be moved physically,
and horror kind of felt that felt a very appropriate
way of communicating and kind of getting I said, getting
people's attention, because that's what it's all about, even if
you bring it all the way to now, it's like
you've got.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
To get people's attention so that they go to theaters. Yeah,
And you know, one of the things that I think
is interesting. I'm a huge horror above obviously. I mean
I love all film, but especially horror. And I think,
you know, especially being in this business, I've learned and
I think it's getting better now. But I've learned that
a lot of people have had in the past at
least a very almost snotty attitude towards horror. And I
(07:44):
find that, you know, artists like yourself and Jordan Peel
and you know, people like that Mia Da Costa and
stuff that are making these kind of more thought provoking
you know, some call it elevated horror or whatever, brings respect,
you know to this genre that I feel And look,
you know, I'm one who loves the bad B movie,
(08:10):
you know, crazy killer whatever movie as well. But there's
there's that kind of movie in every genre, right and
I feel like with horror, it you know it kind
of people tend to go to that. And you've you
and some of these other creators that I've mentioned have
kind of brought this pastiche whatever that word is to
(08:32):
the genre, which I think is so important. And now
you look at the Oscars and you have something like
Sinners and you know an Aunt Gladys. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Amazing, yeah, amazing to see. Like, like for me, it's funny.
I was chatting some people the other day and it
was actually with Jason Blum at the time, and we
were doing some interviews and we were talking about like horrors,
you know, become much more mainstream in a lot of ways,
but without necessarily losing its teeth. I think that's important.
And I was reflecting on and I used to work
(09:01):
in a video store when I was in film school,
like many moons ago, and yeah, of course the horror
section was always kind of buried in some way. But
I was thinking, now, if video stores were open again,
which I wish they were, you'd probably walk in and
be hit by a wall of horror as the first thing,
you know. But the joy of it is the fact
that it's really working from a theatrical experience point of view.
(09:26):
And to me, that's where my focus always lies. As
I said, is those is the dark room, the opening night,
the collective experience which horror really presents itself for. But
also I think as well, just there is incredible filmmaking craft,
and it's there's some you know, we can also look
backwards and look at a movie like Rosemary's Baby, which
(09:47):
is a stunning piece of cinema classic at its own right.
And sure there are horror movies that are maybe less
about the film craft and maybe more just about all
the gags that are trying to be is there all
of the special effects that are there. I've always been
interested in kind of blending the two. That's bringing it
back to the earlier question in terms of where my
(10:08):
compass has been pointed. Is definitely wanting to paint on
a big canvas. And I'm quite excited for people to
see this movie because there is it's visually, it's really
fun in terms of how I've captured the imagery, where
like we use these probe lenses which allowed me to
do crazy super close up work, like right in like
put literally put the lens of centimeter from someone's eyeball.
(10:31):
But then we also have these incredibly vast, beautiful landscapes
as well in the movie, these like these these stunning
cinematic wide shots, and I often feel for me like
horror movies for me are kind of told in the
wide and the close because it's about the gnarly detail.
But then it's also sometimes about just looking at something
and going, well, what's in that corner? When you can
see a little bit wider in those circumstances. But yeah,
(10:53):
there's you know, incredible filmmakers who are who are making
incredible movies inside the genre space, and I think Now
what's fun is that we're not just getting audiences to
the cinema just because they're gonna have a jump scare
or you know, throw their popcorner screen. They get that,
plus they get treated to real cinematic visual kind of
(11:14):
you know, well treats, you know, really really beautiful movies.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
What creatively scares you.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
When I approach something like as in what scares me
in terms of like can I do this? Or how
do I do it?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Exactly?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yea, yeah, everything, I think repeating a trick in a way.
And that's not to say you won't do something similar
to how you've done before, because if you're thinking of
yourself a little bit when you're making a horror movie
like a magician with a box of tricks or tools
that you want to play with, of course there's you're
gonna use the same type of slide of hand, or
you're gonna you might have the same set up, put
(11:51):
a different prestige to your trick. But I think for me,
I never want my work to feel episodic. I always
want to feel like it's building on what's happened before,
and and that that leads into even though the work
that I do does contain body horror and gore and
blood and things like that. At times, for me, I
(12:12):
don't let it define the story that I'm trying to tell,
because whilst I'll do something really gnarly or crazy, I'm
really interested in impressing you with that, but then moving
on to the next trick. What's the next thing we
can do? So that's why my work, although it might
make burn into your eyes for a moment in terms
of something really visceral, I also I'm not trying to
punish you in any way, shape or form. I actually
(12:33):
then maybe want to pull you over here and make
you laugh or make you kind of grimace then a
moment later. And I think that probably brings all the
way back to the kid in me just trying to
say and then, and then and then and impress my
siblings in some way, shape or form. You know what
about this trick? What about this trick? So yeah, I
think what what I what I what I fear is
(12:54):
is never building on what comes before. And I think
this movie, what's very interesting about it is that it
has a big mystery angle, it has a strong family drama.
It's terrifying, but it's also fun it's a fun thrill ride.
Even just today, I went to approve the movie in
forty X, and I didn't realize how good this movie
(13:18):
would be in forty X because it is a thrill ride.
It's fun, you know, And I think what I'm really
excited for audience to experience as well was going on
the ride, getting to know these characters, letting me pull
you into a lot of dark corners and freak you
out in certain ways and make you wonder and make
you think and make you tense, and then strap in
for the last thirty forty minutes of the movie because
(13:40):
you're gonna be held by the throat all the way.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
All right, Lee, What I love about this is you
can really feel the intention behind it. It's not just
let's remake the Mummy. It's let's make the Mummy matter again.
We're gonna take a quick sixty second break to pay
the bills, so when we come back, we're diving deeper
into Lee Cronin's the Mummy. What makes this version different
(14:02):
and why it's I think the one that's gonna stick
with you. Don't go anywhere see in sixty All right,
Welcome back to Pop Culture Weekly. We're here with the
incredible Lee Cronan talking all things Lee Cronan's The Mummy.
So do you feel you know, there there's a legacy
(14:27):
with I don't want to say the story or the character,
but with the Mummy, you know, dating back to the
classic universal monster movies. Do you feel any pressure? You know?
And I know this is this is its own world
and its own thing, but do you feel any pressure
for that? You know, you had the unrelated movies with
(14:50):
Brendan Fraser and that sort of thing, and this is
very much your movie, you know, very much. So yeah,
but do you feel any kind of pressure with that
at all? Or are you able to be like, no,
this is Lee Cronin's The Mummy and this is what
it is.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Yeah. I would never, for a moment ever want to
send arrogant and answering a question like this. But that's
not the type of thing that I feel pressure from.
I feel pressure from my own choices that I kind
of make in terms of, oh my god, am I
doing this right? I'm I going to entertain the audience.
Here is the story good, here is the performance right?
(15:28):
If I reflect back on Evil Dead Evil Dead Rise,
you know that was a question I'd get asked, did
you feel any pressure, and you know, in making this
and taking it on, and I was like, the actual
any pressure I felt in relation to the fact that
it was this existing title that everybody loves, was being
afforded the opportunity and not finding a story that I
wanted to tell, so the pressure to say yes versus
(15:48):
saying no. And thankfully I found the story I wanted
to tell. So with this film as well, I kind
of like the challenge more. It's more how I take
a challenge on then feel pressure was Oh my god,
we could make the most terrifying Mummy movie that's ever
been made, and it very much felt like a challenge
accepted thing for me. And whilst I have great reverence
for the movies that went before, they're all super different.
(16:10):
I'm as interested in the actual history and my interest
as a kid in Egyptology as much as movies. So
I keep saying it. You know, mummies were around long
before we had cameras, so from that point of view,
it didn't really get under my skin. And the pressure
that I feel is can I deliver you something really
really fresh. That's where the pressure comes in.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
And when do you get to a point where you
can answer.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
That question, as in, have I delivered? I guess we
live in a world where the opening weekend of a
movie counts for a lot in terms of that. I think, truthfully,
I actually got to very fortunately have I got to
answer that question a couple of weeks ago. So when
you're finishing a film, it can be in a lot
(16:58):
of separate components towards the end of the process. So
in the in the in the I think I finished
the film maybe about three weeks, yeah, about three weeks ago,
fully fully finished, And the couple of months preceding that,
I'd see the movie so many times from an editorial
point of view, visual effects point of view, color correction
point of view, sound mix, all of these things. So
I tended to be observing the movie for one particular
(17:21):
facet of what the film currently was as opposed to
the full show. And it, strangely enough, because we were
racing to get it finished, as is often the case,
and you've got a release date, it wasn't until I
went to approve the IMAX version of the movie that
I actually saw my completed work in full ever, basically
fully completed, no more changes, because when I signed off
(17:44):
the film, I would have been signing off the last
thing you do is is with the sound miix. But
I'm looking at low res picture and I walk away
and it's like, Okay, we're done, because I looked at
the picture yesterday and I was happy with it, but
it didn't have the right sound on the movie. At
that point, I watched it in Imax with some people
that I really trust and care about, and I went
in just being like, oh, I got to watch this
again like the thirtieth time in the last month or whatever,
(18:05):
and it actually did make me stop and pause and go,
oh shit, this is the movie that you really wanted
to make. This is it. You actually have put your
vision on screen, And that was a lovely moment. So
I just hope audiences can share in that and enjoy
the story that I tried to tell and how I
tried to tell it. And I do know that people
(18:28):
that like my work or even love my work, will
really enjoy the film. But beyond that, there's a lot
to discover in terms of the mystery, the detective angle
and I said, and the kind of dark humor, the
levity and just the fun time of the movies. You know,
you look different when you come out of the film.
As I was trying to promise that you'll be sweat here,
(18:48):
your neat hair won't be as nice as it was,
your collar button will be open. And that's what I'm
trying to do is make sure that you spend your
hard earned money, go to the theater, and then you
come out a little bit different.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I love that so much, especially as a movie buff
and as a fan of your work. And you know,
couldn't be better. Said, what do you think is the
biggest misconception about this film right now?
Speaker 3 (19:14):
I think people will always have a frame of reference
for what they think a movie with a mummy should be.
But having said that, it just it's generational. You know,
there's people that look backly even or people depending on
what their taste is. Like me and myself and James
Wan have talked a lot about where our preferences lie.
And he loves, you know, he loves the Hammer Mummy movies.
That's that's where when he thinks about it, I think,
(19:38):
I think there's always going to be those thoughts around,
you know. Steven Sommer's movie, which again is an action
adventure film and obviously Brendan Fraser is you know, is
an amazing actor and a brilliant character in those movies,
and they're really entertaining in their way. And I actually
never feared there being a misconception. Even from the marketing
of the film. We thought a great opportunity to change perception,
(20:02):
not give people more of the same, even if they
think it might be. And early responses to the movie
when people have seen it recently, they come in and
they go, holy shit, I was not expecting that, and
I go, okay, excellent, that's what we want. You know,
that's what we want.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
How far were you you knows, as you're filming, you know,
how far did you push it tonally? You know, where
did you find a balance between like Okay, I don't
want to go that far and okay, this is enough
to get my point across.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah, tone to me is everything I think. And one
of the you we spoke a little bit earlier about,
you know, pressure, things that you might fear in terms
of approaching your work. Definitely, getting the tonal balance right
in this movie was the type of thing that would
be always ticking as a major thought in my mind
because I was blending I've described this movie as Seven
meet Poltergeist, and they're not necessarily obvious bedfellows. But if
(21:02):
you take the tension and some of the kind of
the weird, offbeat darkness of Seven and the detective angles,
and then you bring in the heart and the hope
and the missing kid aspect of Poultergeist, there actually is
a crossover that you could create, which at least what
I was trying to do, I think tonally, like again,
I never want to punish anybody with the stuff that
(21:23):
I make. I want you to have a good time,
and sometimes I have a good time. You have to
be scared, you know, in a crazy like I'm really
bad with roller coasters, but like if I go on one,
I still have a good time because it's a terrifying experience,
but it's something that's real and it's happened. So for me,
I said, I'll stick the knife in, but I won't
twist it endlessly. That's the thing, and that's always the
(21:46):
little kind of test for me. And there are some
strong emotional moments in this movie as well, and people
do feel it, you know. I think depending on how
you like your horror films, I think with this movie.
You can go in and you can experience terror. I
think you can experience laughter, and you can you can
definitely be moved because at the heart of it all,
(22:08):
there is a story about a family who've lost somebody
that they care about, and then that person has returned,
and then it's a very mean thing to say. Oh,
it's about a family that the worst possible thing has
already happened to and now I'm going to make it
worse for them.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah. I totally get what you're saying, and it makes
context in the in the you know, uh context of
the conversation, but outside of that that would sound horrible. Uh,
you know, you actually answered one of the things I
wanted to ask you is I truly believe that you know,
good film no matter of the genre. What it comes
(22:43):
down to is what's under the surface, you know, what
is the story trying to say? Trying to tell you
Unwrapping the Mummy, if you will, And and but I
think you nailed it in regards to you know, what
it truly is about is that the family.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
You know, totally you can and that's where it always
starts as well for me, dude, because it's like, if
you don't have a story to tell about people that
you can identify with, then everything is just a bunch
of special effects, right, you don't identify with them. And
I think what's interesting is there is a metaphorical power
in this movie that as we're unwrapping the secret, so
(23:23):
is this family's emotions unraveling and the things they didn't
talk about, or the responsibilities they didn't want to own
up to, or the guilt that they feel in relation
to the fact that their daughter went missing. And that
was always really really interesting to me, this idea that
and also the idea and I actually love when you
put the trailer online and people go, hell, no, you know,
(23:43):
I'm not bringing her home and I'm going But you would,
because if you've lost somebody you truly love, you would
do anything to have them back. Yeah, whatever, especially as
some parents. And just because she doesn't look so good
doesn't mean you're not going to try and make her better.
And that to me, how you I think that's a
really important thing when you make a horror movie is
(24:04):
how you trap your characters. And sometimes you trap them
with the phone lines are down. Sometimes you trap them
with the bridge is broken, or you know, or shining
the snow. We can't escape in this movie, there the
characters are actually trapped by their own guilt because they
feel responsible for the fact that their daughter went missing.
So whatever state she's returned in the idea of being
(24:25):
able to fix that guilt and plug the whole and
plug the loss, they'll take a lot of pain, you know,
they'll take it. They'll take a lot on board. And
all of that was where the development started before. Well,
at the same time, I'm always obviously conjuring up, you know,
crazy set pieces, and I have ideas that I want
to explore, but getting the flow of that correct was
(24:49):
really really important to me.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Do you you know, looking back at your first film
or even beyond or even before you know, the whole
the ground which was beautiful up until you know, right
when you went to start shooting this, what have you
taken through those earlier projects? What did you take into
(25:13):
the Mummy? If anything?
Speaker 3 (25:16):
I think I think one of the things that I
found quite interesting was that I could start to trust
I always trust my instincts, but I could start to
trust my instincts even further. And what I mean by
that is I'm extremely, extremely visually precise and detail focused,
(25:38):
and there's a lot of pre design done, and so
say with something like the Hole in the Ground, I
felt it necessary to storyboard er photograph every angle and
make sure we were nearly following that bible with this movie. Yeah,
I did that too, and then I just threw it
away and it was there. It was with me and
my DP. It allowed us to both get the the controlled,
(26:01):
precise thing we planned for, but it actually allowed us
to do some pretty fun experimentation. And I'd probably never
experimented on set before. And you can only experiment so
much because you've got a schedule and a budget. But
we did actually, you know, and Evil Dead, there was
a lot of times as well where we were inventive.
But with this, like I'll give an example, there's a
sequence in it where there's a pretty aggressive volley of
(26:22):
headbuts to put it mildly, and just as we were
towards the end of the previous day and we were
thinking about, you know, we got this kind of like
low angle and profile and you know, and then I
was like, man, we need to be the head butt.
We just got to be the headbut and yeah, we
rolled out one of our crazy probe lenses and we
got our amazing grip on board, and they built this
rig where we could be the point of view of
(26:44):
a head butt that could get like as close as
you could imagine to somebody's face as if it was
actually going to hit and in a weird way. In
the past, perhaps I might have figured out that idea,
but I would have figured out something else. But I
went into places like that knowing we have a good plan,
but I think there's a better plan. And it's trusting
(27:04):
that even at the at the last moment, you can
better the ideas that you've had before. And that's that
lead to me, leads back to trusting your instinct. It
can be pretty seated the pants and terrifying. Also knowing
that you can maybe crack it a bit further than
you already have and trusting that that can work is
probably so trusting myself and believing believing in in in
(27:29):
better ideas even to the last moment.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
I love that. And what do you hope people take away?
You know they're leaving the theater, what do you want
them to say to themselves or to their friend or whatever.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
We need to watch this movie again. The hell that
I just experienced. I think I'm always I think genuinely
from a spectacle point of view, that that is the answer.
I want you to leave the cinema, as I said
earlier on, and have to go to the and splash
water on your face and fix your hair, you know
what I mean. That's that for me is the is
(28:05):
the is the kind of the physical, which I think
is really important because my movies play very physically as well,
and we've got incredible sound. As you feel every crunch,
you feel, every tear of skin, you know, you're you're, you're, you're,
you get really dirty, you know what I mean, and
you might need to like clean yourself up afterwards. But
on an emotional level, no matter what I ever make,
(28:26):
you always want people to also reflect on what the
story is actually about. And for me, it's like what
would I do in that situation? How would I feel?
And it is a very interesting concept because, as I said, well,
imagine you did lose someone very very important to you
and you brought them home. What happens when all the
(28:48):
fanfare dies down about the discovery or the recovery and
you just close the door and it's Tuesday. All my
stories are always you know I come at them from
that point of view. It's like it's it's really interesting
and I'll give you like a really weird, bizarre anecdote
that shows how my brain works. The Queen of England
died when I was working on this movie, or had
early days thoughts, and it was a missing kids story.
(29:09):
But it was the same thing. I thought, Okay, it's
on the news and you know, all the sons and
the princes and everyone's arriving back at the palace. But
when the gates close and the media goes away, does
someone go like, what I put on the kettle? You
know what I mean? Yeah, shit, there's no toilet paper
in the downstairs toilet. Like, there's all these everyday things.
So in this movie, when we do bring Katie home,
(29:29):
the family have to like bring her to her bedroom,
put her to bed, try and remind her who she is,
comb her hair, cut her nails, you know. And I
think by having all of those things, I hope when
people leave the cinema they'll look at it and reflect
like what would I do in that situation? Because I
think that gives you something to think about, and I
really want to give you something to think about. And
(29:52):
that you know and to entertain you.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
I absolutely love that, and I think your work is
does that are there more stories to tell in this
world that you've created?
Speaker 3 (30:07):
I think I've just created the world. Like again, you know,
as as a writer and a filmmaker and an incessant talker.
Of course, my mind definitely has expanded into other areas
because what's cool about this movie is we have a
new lore and we also it's a story about mummification
for a different purpose. That was one of the key
things that kick this off. We always think about mummy
(30:31):
stories and we you know, as Pharaoh, the king, the queen,
the rich and the famous of the time, and then
maybe they're pulling the grave before they should have been,
or they were cursed in some way, or they were
broken hearted. And one of the major pillars in the
starting points this movie for me was what if there
was a different reason for mummification? And then I went, well,
(30:52):
what if that mummification was just to your friend or
your loved one or the person around the corner. Why
would that be? And then that's what led me to
the plot. So we've got a very different lore there.
And even though our story takes place in the now
and eight years earlier for part of the story as well.
It's a story that's in the making for three thousand years,
so there's definitely plenty of places that we could go
(31:13):
on that timeline and within the world of our movie.
This isn't the one and only Mummy that could exist
within our universe. But I think the important thing and
I talk to this. You know, there's a lot of
smart people that I get to work with that are
a lot smarter than me, that have built movie franchises,
My wonderful colleagues over New Line and obviously with Jason
(31:36):
Blum and James Wan, and it's like we were all
here to let the audience decide, and if people love
this movie and they want to know more of the
world that's taken around in my mind, I'm going to
want to try and answer some more questions and bring
you some more crazy fun times at the movies.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Awesome, And as we wind up this is kind of
selfishly I'm asking this, but I'm a huge fan of
physical format, you know, four K and you know I
love that once the movie leaves the theater, I can
go to my home theater and watch it and have
it preserved with all these extras and commentary and all that.
(32:14):
So I'm kind of selfishly asking if you have you
know that in mind for the Mummy for physical later on.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Yeah, of course, of course, and I'm delighted to say so.
And I've seen our amazing artwork for like Steel Book
that we're going to release. I've got recorded my director's commentary,
which is a really interesting one to do when you've
just finished the movie because I know to decompress, so
I feel like it was it's definitely a raw one.
But yeah, look, I'm a big fan of that too.
(32:43):
And obviously previous movie, Evil Dead Rise was released in
a number a number of different times in physical media.
Arrow just did a really cool release of it as well.
I just picked it up. Yeah, and I'm you know,
I haven't actually got my hands on it yet. They
they have arrived at my office in Ireland and I've
been in the US endlessly recently, and but yeah, there
there will be. And I think it's it's always great
(33:04):
to be able if you if you go to the
theater and you see a movie that you love, then
being able to own it is in a real way
and know that it's the filmmaker's vision and it can't
be changed or edited or watered down in any way.
But but I want everybody to go see it in
the cinema first.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Absolutely, absolutely, that's that's you know, you and I think
alike in that way that I want to go and
see it on this big screen that I can never
get at home, Like I'm gonna go see The Mummy.
I didn't realize it was coming in forty X, so
I'll be going and seeing it there too. And then
you know, then the second it goes up for pre order,
I'll be pre ordering my copy for posterity.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
You know, I love that. And yeah, and very thankfully
the movie is available to see it in a bunch
of premium formats, which is cool as well. We've got
IMAX and forty X and Screen X and Barco. And
you know, it's if you, if you really love your
night out of the movies and treat treated in that
way that you want it to be the highlight of
your week and and an event. That's what we said
(34:03):
about creating ultimately was something that feels like you can't
miss it in theaters. And I hope we've we've managed
to achieve that.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I don't think anybody will be saying otherwise. But finally,
you know you are now at a point in your
career that you are able to shape horror and conversations
around horror. Where do you think that horror hasn't gone yet?
If anywhere?
Speaker 3 (34:29):
I think it's not that it hasn't gone there. I
think it's always really cyclical, and there's there's a lot
of trends. There's a lot of trends that chop and
change and stuff. I think what I'm really enjoying at
the moment and hope it continues, is and what audiences
seem to want, which is great because it's always what
I want is horror plus and I mean by plus,
I don't mean more blood and more goods. Necessarily, it's
a horror experience that's also something else as well. And
(34:51):
so with this movie, as I said, it's it's absolutely
a fun time horror film, but it's a great detective
story and a great mystery as well. So you get
you get you get a taste of that. So I'm
more wondering where we can start to push horror, where
we start to invade other genres like that's it. It's
it's time for the land grab, you know what I mean. Like,
I've always wanted to make a really, really good romantic
(35:14):
horror movie, like a really and I do. I've developed
a couple of ideas that could both not necessarily be
a rom com but could be like a strong romance
story but also a badass horror film at the same time.
So I think the more we cross pollinade and blend
with genres and it allows us to be kind of,
you know, all the horror filmmakers out there to be
to be endlessly creative. And as we talked about earlier on,
(35:34):
I'm really pleased that we're seeing things that are all
so incredibly award worthy and big spectacle as well. You know,
someone's going to want to make the Lawrence of Arabia
horror movies. Yeah, and why not.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah. Absolutely, It's a great time to be a horror fan.
And you are, you know, you are one of those
that is leading that. I thank you so much for
speaking with me. Lee. Please come on anytime you want
and we'll talk or whatever else.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Thank you, my opposute pleasure. That was a great chat,
chairs dude.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Thank you have a great daily. Lee Kronin. Yeah, Lee,
Cronan's The Mummy is definitely the kind of movie that
lingers with you, not just why you're watching it, but
like I've been thinking about it a lot since I
saw it, Like when it's quiet, and you know, when
your brain decides to revisit things it absolutely does not
(36:29):
need to. There pops out Lee Cronan's The Mummy. All right,
that's it for this episode of pop Culture Weekly. If
you enjoyed this episode and you're now reconsidering every ancient
artifact in every museum you've ever walked through, make sure
to follow or subscribe wherever you're listening, and of course
I want to hear from you. If you're listening on
the iHeartRadio app, which is free, you can hit the
(36:50):
talkback button, leave me a message and your thoughts and
I might just air them right here on the show.
Or go to popcultureweekly dot com and hit that voicemail button.
And for more interviews, deep dives and all things pop culture,
go to my YouTube channel at pop Culture Weekly. I'm
Kyle McMahon. And until next time, keep watching, keep listening,
(37:13):
and maybe don't open anything sealed for thousands of years,
Like it just feels like it's a bad idea. All right,
all right, I love you, see you next time.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Well, thank you for listening to Pop Culture Weekly. Here
all the latest at popculturewekly dot com.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Lee Cronins, The Mummy don't unwrap things that you can handle.
Lee Cronins, The.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Mummy scary and it's good. The Mum is misundstued.
In this episode of pop Culture Weekly, I have Lee
Cronin on to discuss Lee Cronin's The Mummy.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Let's go Welcome to pop Culture Weekly with Kyle McMahon
from iHeartRadio your pop culture news, views, reviews and celebrity
interviews on all the movies, TV, music and pop culture
u Crab Weekly. Here's Kyle MCMAHONNTT.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Nan Nett, Hello, and welcome to pop Culture Weekly with
Kyle McMahon. I of course am Kyle McMahon, and this
is the show where we celebrate pop culture, question our
life choices, and occasionally unwrap something that absolutely should have
stayed buried. Today it is all about Lee Cronan's The Mummy.
(00:51):
I saw this and it is so good. It is
so scary. Lee Cronan is a genius, And you know
the Mummy. It's one of those characters that's basically been
rebooted like more times than all of our abilities to
make good decisions combined. You go all the way back
to the classic universal Monster era, you know, the original
(01:13):
The Mummy. They were like kind of slow, haunting and
tragic and kind of genuinely unsettling, and there were some
sequels and all that and then you know, you move
flash forward to the nineties, which was basically like what
if you know, this horror movie was also a roller coaster,
which honestly it's iconic.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
No notes.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I love those The Mummy movies. Those were like, you know,
the Mummy movies when I was a kid, and of
course I love the Mummy. Rye at Universal Studios. And
then we got the modern action version, which felt less
like The Mummy and more like Mission Sandstorm. But through
(01:58):
all of that, you know, somewhere along the way, we
kind of lost what makes the Mummy actually scary. You know,
it went from this horror franchise to something else, and
the Mummy it's not just a monster, you know, it's history.
It's something ancient, something cursed, something that was never supposed
(02:21):
to come back. And that's what makes this new version
Lee Cronin's The Mummy so freaking interesting because it feels
like we're going back to that idea. It's not, you know,
bigger just for the sake of being bigger, louder, but
it is more dark, it's more intimate, it's more uncomfortable,
(02:44):
the kind of horror that doesn't just jump out at you,
but it like kind of sits there waiting and then
you realize, oh, sh nikes, this is terrifying, which is exactly,
you know, for me, what I believe how the Mummy
movies should be. So let's hop right into it. I'm
(03:05):
talking with director writer Lee Cronin, who, if you've been
paying attention to the show or horror, he has already
proven that he knows how to take something familiar and
make it feel completely unhinged, but like in the best
way possible, you know what I mean. He's got a
real understanding I would say, of tension and atmosphere, but
(03:30):
more importantly, in my opinion, he knows how to make
horror feel personal, which is exactly what the Mummy needs,
because it's not. In my opinion, the Mummy shouldn't just
be this like spectacle. It really has to feel like
something is wrong, like something ancient is here in the present.
(03:52):
So I talk with Lee about stepping into a legacy
like the Mummy, what drew him to it, and how
you honor you know, all of the films that have
come before, but without being trapped by it, if that
makes sense, And how do you bring a character like
the Mummy back in a way that actually means something today.
(04:14):
So we're going to jump right into it here. He
is Lee Cronin. First of all, thank you so much
for speaking with me.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Lee.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I love your work, I love your career, and I
can't wait to talk about the Mummy. But I want
to go back first, if that's okay with you. Absolutely
my pleasure looking forward to our conversation. Awesome. So when
you look back before any of you know this, what
kind of filmmaker did you think that you would end
(04:46):
up being?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Oh wow, that's a good question, I guess because I'm
still on the journey, I suppose. Look, I was a
child of Amblin, definitely big Spielberg fan. My focus was
always on entertaining and engaging audiences in dark rooms, and
I think I was quite genre agnostic when I kind
(05:11):
of started out in terms of like what I like
to watch. I was a big, obviously big horror fan.
But you know, probably when it was really clicking for me,
when I was you know, like fifteen or whatever, and
be like I'm really going to do this, I would
be watching Reservoir Dogs over and over again and trying
to write flashy dialogue that way. So the influence is
kind of wax and way and as time goes by.
But I think my focus has always been on on
(05:34):
the spectacular, the event, whatever it might be, whether that's
a small, simple story and it's a story that captures
everybody's imagination in a particular way, or it's a big,
glossy four quadrant movie. You know, I love my family
films as well, So I don't know if I'm quite
answering what you've asked, which is who did I think
I'd be? But I guess I always hoped for big, noisy, loud,
(05:59):
splashy movies was the hope, and I'm trying to push
that direction as often as I can.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I love that. And you know you have talked before
in the past about being drawn to darker stories. What
is it about horror specifically? That kind of is your
I don't want to say your love language, but you're
you know, speaks to you, if you will, a very
dark love language.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
I think like there's a couple of aspects to it
that certainly drew me personally in One of them is
how it engages people. And that engagement for me came
through my observations and I was very small watching my
family and my siblings react to horror movies and thinking, WHOA,
And when you're the youngest, and there's a big age
(06:41):
gap in my family, when you're the youngest, you think,
so that's how you get people's attention, That's how you
get the grown ups attention. And I would somewhat be
the clown in my family, and you know, sometimes the
clown can tell a dark joke or do a dark thing.
So I was definitely drawn from that point of view
of like this, if you want to tell a story
and you want to move people in some way, like
(07:03):
you can be moved emotionally, you can be moved physically,
and horror kind of felt that felt a very appropriate
way of communicating and kind of getting I said, getting
people's attention, because that's what it's all about, even if
you bring it all the way to now, it's like
you've got.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
To get people's attention so that they go to theaters. Yeah,
And you know, one of the things that I think
is interesting. I'm a huge horror above obviously. I mean
I love all film, but especially horror. And I think,
you know, especially being in this business, I've learned and
I think it's getting better now. But I've learned that
a lot of people have had in the past at
least a very almost snotty attitude towards horror. And I
(07:44):
find that, you know, artists like yourself and Jordan Peel
and you know, people like that Mia Da Costa and
stuff that are making these kind of more thought provoking
you know, some call it elevated horror or whatever, brings respect,
you know to this genre that I feel And look,
you know, I'm one who loves the bad B movie,
(08:10):
you know, crazy killer whatever movie as well. But there's
there's that kind of movie in every genre, right and
I feel like with horror, it you know it kind
of people tend to go to that. And you've you
and some of these other creators that I've mentioned have
kind of brought this pastiche whatever that word is to
(08:32):
the genre, which I think is so important. And now
you look at the Oscars and you have something like
Sinners and you know an Aunt Gladys. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Amazing, yeah, amazing to see. Like, like for me, it's funny.
I was chatting some people the other day and it
was actually with Jason Blum at the time, and we
were doing some interviews and we were talking about like horrors,
you know, become much more mainstream in a lot of ways,
but without necessarily losing its teeth. I think that's important.
And I was reflecting on and I used to work
(09:01):
in a video store when I was in film school,
like many moons ago, and yeah, of course the horror
section was always kind of buried in some way. But
I was thinking, now, if video stores were open again,
which I wish they were, you'd probably walk in and
be hit by a wall of horror as the first thing,
you know. But the joy of it is the fact
that it's really working from a theatrical experience point of view.
(09:26):
And to me, that's where my focus always lies. As
I said, is those is the dark room, the opening night,
the collective experience which horror really presents itself for. But
also I think as well, just there is incredible filmmaking craft,
and it's there's some you know, we can also look
backwards and look at a movie like Rosemary's Baby, which
(09:47):
is a stunning piece of cinema classic at its own right.
And sure there are horror movies that are maybe less
about the film craft and maybe more just about all
the gags that are trying to be is there all
of the special effects that are there. I've always been
interested in kind of blending the two. That's bringing it
back to the earlier question in terms of where my
(10:08):
compass has been pointed. Is definitely wanting to paint on
a big canvas. And I'm quite excited for people to
see this movie because there is it's visually, it's really
fun in terms of how I've captured the imagery, where
like we use these probe lenses which allowed me to
do crazy super close up work, like right in like
put literally put the lens of centimeter from someone's eyeball.
(10:31):
But then we also have these incredibly vast, beautiful landscapes
as well in the movie, these like these these stunning
cinematic wide shots, and I often feel for me like
horror movies for me are kind of told in the
wide and the close because it's about the gnarly detail.
But then it's also sometimes about just looking at something
and going, well, what's in that corner? When you can
see a little bit wider in those circumstances. But yeah,
(10:53):
there's you know, incredible filmmakers who are who are making
incredible movies inside the genre space, and I think Now
what's fun is that we're not just getting audiences to
the cinema just because they're gonna have a jump scare
or you know, throw their popcorner screen. They get that,
plus they get treated to real cinematic visual kind of
(11:14):
you know, well treats, you know, really really beautiful movies.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
What creatively scares you.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
When I approach something like as in what scares me
in terms of like can I do this? Or how
do I do it?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Exactly?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yea, yeah, everything, I think repeating a trick in a way.
And that's not to say you won't do something similar
to how you've done before, because if you're thinking of
yourself a little bit when you're making a horror movie
like a magician with a box of tricks or tools
that you want to play with, of course there's you're
gonna use the same type of slide of hand, or
you're gonna you might have the same set up, put
(11:51):
a different prestige to your trick. But I think for me,
I never want my work to feel episodic. I always
want to feel like it's building on what's happened before,
and and that that leads into even though the work
that I do does contain body horror and gore and
blood and things like that. At times, for me, I
(12:12):
don't let it define the story that I'm trying to tell,
because whilst I'll do something really gnarly or crazy, I'm
really interested in impressing you with that, but then moving
on to the next trick. What's the next thing we
can do? So that's why my work, although it might
make burn into your eyes for a moment in terms
of something really visceral, I also I'm not trying to
punish you in any way, shape or form. I actually
(12:33):
then maybe want to pull you over here and make
you laugh or make you kind of grimace then a
moment later. And I think that probably brings all the
way back to the kid in me just trying to
say and then, and then and then and impress my
siblings in some way, shape or form. You know what
about this trick? What about this trick? So yeah, I
think what what I what I what I fear is
(12:54):
is never building on what comes before. And I think
this movie, what's very interesting about it is that it
has a big mystery angle, it has a strong family drama.
It's terrifying, but it's also fun it's a fun thrill ride.
Even just today, I went to approve the movie in
forty X, and I didn't realize how good this movie
(13:18):
would be in forty X because it is a thrill ride.
It's fun, you know, And I think what I'm really
excited for audience to experience as well was going on
the ride, getting to know these characters, letting me pull
you into a lot of dark corners and freak you
out in certain ways and make you wonder and make
you think and make you tense, and then strap in
for the last thirty forty minutes of the movie because
(13:40):
you're gonna be held by the throat all the way.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
All right, Lee, What I love about this is you
can really feel the intention behind it. It's not just
let's remake the Mummy. It's let's make the Mummy matter again.
We're gonna take a quick sixty second break to pay
the bills, so when we come back, we're diving deeper
into Lee Cronin's the Mummy. What makes this version different
(14:02):
and why it's I think the one that's gonna stick
with you. Don't go anywhere see in sixty All right,
Welcome back to Pop Culture Weekly. We're here with the
incredible Lee Cronan talking all things Lee Cronan's The Mummy.
So do you feel you know, there there's a legacy
(14:27):
with I don't want to say the story or the character,
but with the Mummy, you know, dating back to the
classic universal monster movies. Do you feel any pressure? You know?
And I know this is this is its own world
and its own thing, but do you feel any pressure
for that? You know, you had the unrelated movies with
(14:50):
Brendan Fraser and that sort of thing, and this is
very much your movie, you know, very much. So yeah,
but do you feel any kind of pressure with that
at all? Or are you able to be like, no,
this is Lee Cronin's The Mummy and this is what
it is.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Yeah. I would never, for a moment ever want to
send arrogant and answering a question like this. But that's
not the type of thing that I feel pressure from.
I feel pressure from my own choices that I kind
of make in terms of, oh my god, am I
doing this right? I'm I going to entertain the audience.
Here is the story good, here is the performance right?
(15:28):
If I reflect back on Evil Dead Evil Dead Rise,
you know that was a question I'd get asked, did
you feel any pressure, and you know, in making this
and taking it on, and I was like, the actual
any pressure I felt in relation to the fact that
it was this existing title that everybody loves, was being
afforded the opportunity and not finding a story that I
wanted to tell, so the pressure to say yes versus
(15:48):
saying no. And thankfully I found the story I wanted
to tell. So with this film as well, I kind
of like the challenge more. It's more how I take
a challenge on then feel pressure was Oh my god,
we could make the most terrifying Mummy movie that's ever
been made, and it very much felt like a challenge
accepted thing for me. And whilst I have great reverence
for the movies that went before, they're all super different.
(16:10):
I'm as interested in the actual history and my interest
as a kid in Egyptology as much as movies. So
I keep saying it. You know, mummies were around long
before we had cameras, so from that point of view,
it didn't really get under my skin. And the pressure
that I feel is can I deliver you something really
really fresh. That's where the pressure comes in.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
And when do you get to a point where you
can answer.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
That question, as in, have I delivered? I guess we
live in a world where the opening weekend of a
movie counts for a lot in terms of that. I think, truthfully,
I actually got to very fortunately have I got to
answer that question a couple of weeks ago. So when
you're finishing a film, it can be in a lot
(16:58):
of separate components towards the end of the process. So
in the in the in the I think I finished
the film maybe about three weeks, yeah, about three weeks ago,
fully fully finished, And the couple of months preceding that,
I'd see the movie so many times from an editorial
point of view, visual effects point of view, color correction
point of view, sound mix, all of these things. So
I tended to be observing the movie for one particular
(17:21):
facet of what the film currently was as opposed to
the full show. And it, strangely enough, because we were
racing to get it finished, as is often the case,
and you've got a release date, it wasn't until I
went to approve the IMAX version of the movie that
I actually saw my completed work in full ever, basically
fully completed, no more changes, because when I signed off
(17:44):
the film, I would have been signing off the last
thing you do is is with the sound miix. But
I'm looking at low res picture and I walk away
and it's like, Okay, we're done, because I looked at
the picture yesterday and I was happy with it, but
it didn't have the right sound on the movie. At
that point, I watched it in Imax with some people
that I really trust and care about, and I went
in just being like, oh, I got to watch this
again like the thirtieth time in the last month or whatever,
(18:05):
and it actually did make me stop and pause and go,
oh shit, this is the movie that you really wanted
to make. This is it. You actually have put your
vision on screen, And that was a lovely moment. So
I just hope audiences can share in that and enjoy
the story that I tried to tell and how I
tried to tell it. And I do know that people
(18:28):
that like my work or even love my work, will
really enjoy the film. But beyond that, there's a lot
to discover in terms of the mystery, the detective angle
and I said, and the kind of dark humor, the
levity and just the fun time of the movies. You know,
you look different when you come out of the film.
As I was trying to promise that you'll be sweat here,
(18:48):
your neat hair won't be as nice as it was,
your collar button will be open. And that's what I'm
trying to do is make sure that you spend your
hard earned money, go to the theater, and then you
come out a little bit different.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I love that so much, especially as a movie buff
and as a fan of your work. And you know,
couldn't be better. Said, what do you think is the
biggest misconception about this film right now?
Speaker 3 (19:14):
I think people will always have a frame of reference
for what they think a movie with a mummy should be.
But having said that, it just it's generational. You know,
there's people that look backly even or people depending on
what their taste is. Like me and myself and James
Wan have talked a lot about where our preferences lie.
And he loves, you know, he loves the Hammer Mummy movies.
That's that's where when he thinks about it, I think,
(19:38):
I think there's always going to be those thoughts around,
you know. Steven Sommer's movie, which again is an action
adventure film and obviously Brendan Fraser is you know, is
an amazing actor and a brilliant character in those movies,
and they're really entertaining in their way. And I actually
never feared there being a misconception. Even from the marketing
of the film. We thought a great opportunity to change perception,
(20:02):
not give people more of the same, even if they
think it might be. And early responses to the movie
when people have seen it recently, they come in and
they go, holy shit, I was not expecting that, and
I go, okay, excellent, that's what we want. You know,
that's what we want.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
How far were you you knows, as you're filming, you know,
how far did you push it tonally? You know, where
did you find a balance between like Okay, I don't
want to go that far and okay, this is enough
to get my point across.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah, tone to me is everything I think. And one
of the you we spoke a little bit earlier about,
you know, pressure, things that you might fear in terms
of approaching your work. Definitely, getting the tonal balance right
in this movie was the type of thing that would
be always ticking as a major thought in my mind
because I was blending I've described this movie as Seven
meet Poltergeist, and they're not necessarily obvious bedfellows. But if
(21:02):
you take the tension and some of the kind of
the weird, offbeat darkness of Seven and the detective angles,
and then you bring in the heart and the hope
and the missing kid aspect of Poultergeist, there actually is
a crossover that you could create, which at least what
I was trying to do, I think tonally, like again,
I never want to punish anybody with the stuff that
(21:23):
I make. I want you to have a good time,
and sometimes I have a good time. You have to
be scared, you know, in a crazy like I'm really
bad with roller coasters, but like if I go on one,
I still have a good time because it's a terrifying experience,
but it's something that's real and it's happened. So for me,
I said, I'll stick the knife in, but I won't
twist it endlessly. That's the thing, and that's always the
(21:46):
little kind of test for me. And there are some
strong emotional moments in this movie as well, and people
do feel it, you know. I think depending on how
you like your horror films, I think with this movie.
You can go in and you can experience terror. I
think you can experience laughter, and you can you can
definitely be moved because at the heart of it all,
(22:08):
there is a story about a family who've lost somebody
that they care about, and then that person has returned,
and then it's a very mean thing to say. Oh,
it's about a family that the worst possible thing has
already happened to and now I'm going to make it
worse for them.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah. I totally get what you're saying, and it makes
context in the in the you know, uh context of
the conversation, but outside of that that would sound horrible. Uh,
you know, you actually answered one of the things I
wanted to ask you is I truly believe that you know,
good film no matter of the genre. What it comes
(22:43):
down to is what's under the surface, you know, what
is the story trying to say? Trying to tell you
Unwrapping the Mummy, if you will, And and but I
think you nailed it in regards to you know, what
it truly is about is that the family.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
You know, totally you can and that's where it always
starts as well for me, dude, because it's like, if
you don't have a story to tell about people that
you can identify with, then everything is just a bunch
of special effects, right, you don't identify with them. And
I think what's interesting is there is a metaphorical power
in this movie that as we're unwrapping the secret, so
(23:23):
is this family's emotions unraveling and the things they didn't
talk about, or the responsibilities they didn't want to own
up to, or the guilt that they feel in relation
to the fact that their daughter went missing. And that
was always really really interesting to me, this idea that
and also the idea and I actually love when you
put the trailer online and people go, hell, no, you know,
(23:43):
I'm not bringing her home and I'm going But you would,
because if you've lost somebody you truly love, you would
do anything to have them back. Yeah, whatever, especially as
some parents. And just because she doesn't look so good
doesn't mean you're not going to try and make her better.
And that to me, how you I think that's a
really important thing when you make a horror movie is
(24:04):
how you trap your characters. And sometimes you trap them
with the phone lines are down. Sometimes you trap them
with the bridge is broken, or you know, or shining
the snow. We can't escape in this movie, there the
characters are actually trapped by their own guilt because they
feel responsible for the fact that their daughter went missing.
So whatever state she's returned in the idea of being
(24:25):
able to fix that guilt and plug the whole and
plug the loss, they'll take a lot of pain, you know,
they'll take it. They'll take a lot on board. And
all of that was where the development started before. Well,
at the same time, I'm always obviously conjuring up, you know,
crazy set pieces, and I have ideas that I want
to explore, but getting the flow of that correct was
(24:49):
really really important to me.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Do you you know, looking back at your first film
or even beyond or even before you know, the whole
the ground which was beautiful up until you know, right
when you went to start shooting this, what have you
taken through those earlier projects? What did you take into
(25:13):
the Mummy? If anything?
Speaker 3 (25:16):
I think I think one of the things that I
found quite interesting was that I could start to trust
I always trust my instincts, but I could start to
trust my instincts even further. And what I mean by
that is I'm extremely, extremely visually precise and detail focused,
(25:38):
and there's a lot of pre design done, and so
say with something like the Hole in the Ground, I
felt it necessary to storyboard er photograph every angle and
make sure we were nearly following that bible with this movie. Yeah,
I did that too, and then I just threw it
away and it was there. It was with me and
my DP. It allowed us to both get the the controlled,
(26:01):
precise thing we planned for, but it actually allowed us
to do some pretty fun experimentation. And I'd probably never
experimented on set before. And you can only experiment so
much because you've got a schedule and a budget. But
we did actually, you know, and Evil Dead, there was
a lot of times as well where we were inventive.
But with this, like I'll give an example, there's a
sequence in it where there's a pretty aggressive volley of
(26:22):
headbuts to put it mildly, and just as we were
towards the end of the previous day and we were
thinking about, you know, we got this kind of like
low angle and profile and you know, and then I
was like, man, we need to be the head butt.
We just got to be the headbut and yeah, we
rolled out one of our crazy probe lenses and we
got our amazing grip on board, and they built this
rig where we could be the point of view of
(26:44):
a head butt that could get like as close as
you could imagine to somebody's face as if it was
actually going to hit and in a weird way. In
the past, perhaps I might have figured out that idea,
but I would have figured out something else. But I
went into places like that knowing we have a good plan,
but I think there's a better plan. And it's trusting
(27:04):
that even at the at the last moment, you can
better the ideas that you've had before. And that's that
lead to me, leads back to trusting your instinct. It
can be pretty seated the pants and terrifying. Also knowing
that you can maybe crack it a bit further than
you already have and trusting that that can work is
probably so trusting myself and believing believing in in in
(27:29):
better ideas even to the last moment.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
I love that. And what do you hope people take away?
You know they're leaving the theater, what do you want
them to say to themselves or to their friend or whatever.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
We need to watch this movie again. The hell that
I just experienced. I think I'm always I think genuinely
from a spectacle point of view, that that is the answer.
I want you to leave the cinema, as I said
earlier on, and have to go to the and splash
water on your face and fix your hair, you know
what I mean. That's that for me is the is
(28:05):
the is the kind of the physical, which I think
is really important because my movies play very physically as well,
and we've got incredible sound. As you feel every crunch,
you feel, every tear of skin, you know, you're you're, you're, you're,
you get really dirty, you know what I mean, and
you might need to like clean yourself up afterwards. But
on an emotional level, no matter what I ever make,
(28:26):
you always want people to also reflect on what the
story is actually about. And for me, it's like what
would I do in that situation? How would I feel?
And it is a very interesting concept because, as I said, well,
imagine you did lose someone very very important to you
and you brought them home. What happens when all the
(28:48):
fanfare dies down about the discovery or the recovery and
you just close the door and it's Tuesday. All my
stories are always you know I come at them from
that point of view. It's like it's it's really interesting
and I'll give you like a really weird, bizarre anecdote
that shows how my brain works. The Queen of England
died when I was working on this movie, or had
early days thoughts, and it was a missing kids story.
(29:09):
But it was the same thing. I thought, Okay, it's
on the news and you know, all the sons and
the princes and everyone's arriving back at the palace. But
when the gates close and the media goes away, does
someone go like, what I put on the kettle? You
know what I mean? Yeah, shit, there's no toilet paper
in the downstairs toilet. Like, there's all these everyday things.
So in this movie, when we do bring Katie home,
(29:29):
the family have to like bring her to her bedroom,
put her to bed, try and remind her who she is,
comb her hair, cut her nails, you know. And I
think by having all of those things, I hope when
people leave the cinema they'll look at it and reflect
like what would I do in that situation? Because I
think that gives you something to think about, and I
really want to give you something to think about. And
(29:52):
that you know and to entertain you.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
I absolutely love that, and I think your work is
does that are there more stories to tell in this
world that you've created?
Speaker 3 (30:07):
I think I've just created the world. Like again, you know,
as as a writer and a filmmaker and an incessant talker.
Of course, my mind definitely has expanded into other areas
because what's cool about this movie is we have a
new lore and we also it's a story about mummification
for a different purpose. That was one of the key
things that kick this off. We always think about mummy
(30:31):
stories and we you know, as Pharaoh, the king, the queen,
the rich and the famous of the time, and then
maybe they're pulling the grave before they should have been,
or they were cursed in some way, or they were
broken hearted. And one of the major pillars in the
starting points this movie for me was what if there
was a different reason for mummification? And then I went, well,
(30:52):
what if that mummification was just to your friend or
your loved one or the person around the corner. Why
would that be? And then that's what led me to
the plot. So we've got a very different lore there.
And even though our story takes place in the now
and eight years earlier for part of the story as well.
It's a story that's in the making for three thousand years,
so there's definitely plenty of places that we could go
(31:13):
on that timeline and within the world of our movie.
This isn't the one and only Mummy that could exist
within our universe. But I think the important thing and
I talk to this. You know, there's a lot of
smart people that I get to work with that are
a lot smarter than me, that have built movie franchises,
My wonderful colleagues over New Line and obviously with Jason
(31:36):
Blum and James Wan, and it's like we were all
here to let the audience decide, and if people love
this movie and they want to know more of the
world that's taken around in my mind, I'm going to
want to try and answer some more questions and bring
you some more crazy fun times at the movies.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Awesome, And as we wind up this is kind of
selfishly I'm asking this, but I'm a huge fan of
physical format, you know, four K and you know I
love that once the movie leaves the theater, I can
go to my home theater and watch it and have
it preserved with all these extras and commentary and all that.
(32:14):
So I'm kind of selfishly asking if you have you
know that in mind for the Mummy for physical later on.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Yeah, of course, of course, and I'm delighted to say so.
And I've seen our amazing artwork for like Steel Book
that we're going to release. I've got recorded my director's commentary,
which is a really interesting one to do when you've
just finished the movie because I know to decompress, so
I feel like it was it's definitely a raw one.
But yeah, look, I'm a big fan of that too.
(32:43):
And obviously previous movie, Evil Dead Rise was released in
a number a number of different times in physical media.
Arrow just did a really cool release of it as well.
I just picked it up. Yeah, and I'm you know,
I haven't actually got my hands on it yet. They
they have arrived at my office in Ireland and I've
been in the US endlessly recently, and but yeah, there
there will be. And I think it's it's always great
(33:04):
to be able if you if you go to the
theater and you see a movie that you love, then
being able to own it is in a real way
and know that it's the filmmaker's vision and it can't
be changed or edited or watered down in any way.
But but I want everybody to go see it in
the cinema first.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Absolutely, absolutely, that's that's you know, you and I think
alike in that way that I want to go and
see it on this big screen that I can never
get at home, Like I'm gonna go see The Mummy.
I didn't realize it was coming in forty X, so
I'll be going and seeing it there too. And then
you know, then the second it goes up for pre order,
I'll be pre ordering my copy for posterity.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
You know, I love that. And yeah, and very thankfully
the movie is available to see it in a bunch
of premium formats, which is cool as well. We've got
IMAX and forty X and Screen X and Barco. And
you know, it's if you, if you really love your
night out of the movies and treat treated in that
way that you want it to be the highlight of
your week and and an event. That's what we said
(34:03):
about creating ultimately was something that feels like you can't
miss it in theaters. And I hope we've we've managed
to achieve that.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I don't think anybody will be saying otherwise. But finally,
you know you are now at a point in your
career that you are able to shape horror and conversations
around horror. Where do you think that horror hasn't gone yet?
If anywhere?
Speaker 3 (34:29):
I think it's not that it hasn't gone there. I
think it's always really cyclical, and there's there's a lot
of trends. There's a lot of trends that chop and
change and stuff. I think what I'm really enjoying at
the moment and hope it continues, is and what audiences
seem to want, which is great because it's always what
I want is horror plus and I mean by plus,
I don't mean more blood and more goods. Necessarily, it's
a horror experience that's also something else as well. And
(34:51):
so with this movie, as I said, it's it's absolutely
a fun time horror film, but it's a great detective
story and a great mystery as well. So you get
you get you get a taste of that. So I'm
more wondering where we can start to push horror, where
we start to invade other genres like that's it. It's
it's time for the land grab, you know what I mean. Like,
I've always wanted to make a really, really good romantic
(35:14):
horror movie, like a really and I do. I've developed
a couple of ideas that could both not necessarily be
a rom com but could be like a strong romance
story but also a badass horror film at the same time.
So I think the more we cross pollinade and blend
with genres and it allows us to be kind of,
you know, all the horror filmmakers out there to be
to be endlessly creative. And as we talked about earlier on,
(35:34):
I'm really pleased that we're seeing things that are all
so incredibly award worthy and big spectacle as well. You know,
someone's going to want to make the Lawrence of Arabia
horror movies. Yeah, and why not.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah. Absolutely, It's a great time to be a horror fan.
And you are, you know, you are one of those
that is leading that. I thank you so much for
speaking with me. Lee. Please come on anytime you want
and we'll talk or whatever else.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Thank you, my opposute pleasure. That was a great chat,
chairs dude.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Thank you have a great daily. Lee Kronin. Yeah, Lee,
Cronan's The Mummy is definitely the kind of movie that
lingers with you, not just why you're watching it, but
like I've been thinking about it a lot since I
saw it, Like when it's quiet, and you know, when
your brain decides to revisit things it absolutely does not
(36:29):
need to. There pops out Lee Cronan's The Mummy. All right,
that's it for this episode of pop Culture Weekly. If
you enjoyed this episode and you're now reconsidering every ancient
artifact in every museum you've ever walked through, make sure
to follow or subscribe wherever you're listening, and of course
I want to hear from you. If you're listening on
the iHeartRadio app, which is free, you can hit the
(36:50):
talkback button, leave me a message and your thoughts and
I might just air them right here on the show.
Or go to popcultureweekly dot com and hit that voicemail button.
And for more interviews, deep dives and all things pop culture,
go to my YouTube channel at pop Culture Weekly. I'm
Kyle McMahon. And until next time, keep watching, keep listening,
(37:13):
and maybe don't open anything sealed for thousands of years,
Like it just feels like it's a bad idea. All right,
all right, I love you, see you next time.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Well, thank you for listening to Pop Culture Weekly. Here
all the latest at popculturewekly dot com.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Lee Cronins, The Mummy don't unwrap things that you can handle.
Lee Cronins, The.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Mummy scary and it's good. The Mum is misundstued.
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