Tom Cruise Takes Lead Role for 'The Mummy' Reboot in Summer 2017

Tom Cruise has officially signed a deal with Universal Studios to bring one of the most iconic movie monsters of all time back to the big screen, in a reboot of The Mummy that has been bumped back to the summer of 2017. It seems it'll be part of a major franchise including all the scary crowd from old movies, leading up to an Avengers type of grouping but on the dark side.

According to Screen Crush, ahead of the confirmation of Cruise in the film, there had been months and months of speculation regarding the project, and now it's finally official. Still, there's an unpredicted twist: Universal wants to bring their catalogue of classic movie monsters, including the likes of Frankenstein and Dracula, in one same universe.

Think of Hotel Transylvania but without the comedy.

So far, little is known about the first project of this Marvel-like Monster Cinematic Universe other than Cruise's involvement and a female lead. Sofia Boutella from 2014 British film Kingsman: The Secret Service, has been confirmed for a role. She'll be playing a girl-mummy in the film.

Also involved in the project is Star Trek: Into Darkness writer Alex Kurtzman as director, working with a script by Jon Spaihts (Prometheus, Doctor Strange). Both Kurtzman and Furious 7's Chris Morgan were brought in by Universal to develop the idea of a monster movieverse. While Cruise is expected to be heavily involved behind the scenes, he hasn't been officially announced as a producer for the film.

Unlike the previous Mummy trilogy, Cruise's will be set in the present-day "in which its classic monster movie library is front and center," Variety reports.

It's been eight years since the last installment of the previous Mummy movies. The third installment, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, starring Brendan Fraser plus Maria Bello in the Rachel Weisz role, holds a 12 percent "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the general feeling was that the movie was one sequel too many for the series.  Is Tom Cruise the right man to revive the series?  Let us know what you think.