The Mummy: 10 Monster Films It Must Improve Upon

In case you didn’t know, The Mummy is Universal’s latest attempt to return their classic monsters to the screen. Instead of a standalone movie with the possibility of a sequel somewhere down the line, however, it’s the first entry in a Marvel-style cinematic universe.

Tom Cruise plays Nick Morton, a mysterious character whose apparent resurrection has something to do with Dr Henry Jekyll, played by Russell Crowe. The voice of Prodigium, a SHIELD-like organization, Jekyll seems to be the shared universe’s Nick Fury, bringing superheroes together to fight evil.

Should the movie prove successful, there are already plans to reboot The Bride Of Frankenstein as a follow-up, with Angelina Jolie being considered for the title role. Bill Condon, who directed the James Whale biopic Gods And Monsters, takes the director’s chair.

Then again, similar things were promised (and came to nothing) in 2014. Prior to that, Hollywood found its books awash with red ink when a series of monster movies underperformed at the box office.

If The Mummy is to avoid a similar fate, here are ten movies it needs to improve upon.

The Thing is a triumph of marketing over content: it was sold as a prequel, but it plays more like a remake, matching the 1982 film beat for beat. As reboots go, it’s not that bad….but it’s not that great, either.

Once again, an arctic expedition (comprised of Norwegians and – mysteriously – a token American) discovers a creature in the ice and again they’re picked off one by one, but this time the transformation scenes are accomplished with digital effects that proved a major bone of contention for fans of John Carpenter’s version.

In fact, the effects are so poor that they were blamed for the film’s underwhelming box office returns. On a $38 million budget, the film could only drum up $26 million worth of business worldwide.