Evil Dead Rise and Lee Cronin’s path from horror breakout to a bigger test

At a moment when studios are trying to make noise in a crowded marketplace, evil dead rise still matters as a reference point for how quickly a horror filmmaker can gain leverage. Lee Cronin’s next move has put that leverage under a brighter light, and the discussion now reaches far beyond one movie’s opening weekend.

Why did Lee Cronin’s name travel with his new mummy film?

The answer begins with a title choice that made the project feel personal from the start. Jason Blum, chief executive of Blumhouse, suggested the possessory framing, and Cronin says that the idea helped the film establish its own identity. He describes the movie as singular from the page onward, not as a bid to trade on his name for recognition. That distinction matters because the film entered theaters with audience expectations already in motion.

Cronin had just come off evil dead rise, which was the highest-grossing entry in Sam Raimi’s horror franchise. That success gave him a new level of attention, but it also raised the stakes. In his telling, the freedom to reinvent a classic monster was appealing, even if it came with a title that made the film feel more exposed. The result was a release that had to stand on its own while carrying the weight of an established genre legacy.

What did test audiences misunderstand about the movie?

Cronin says a minority of test viewers kept expecting a connection to Brendan Fraser’s earlier The Mummy trilogy, even though the new film was designed as its own thing. That confusion became part of the release conversation, especially after the revival of the Fraser-fronted franchise was announced while Cronin was editing his version in November 2025. The overlap created a cloud of assumptions that the film had to push through.

He also pushed back on a separate claim that producer James Wan walked out of a test screening in disgust. Cronin says Wan left because he needed to go to the bathroom and had already seen the movie three times. He also dismissed the idea that the film’s late-stage social media messaging was a reaction to test-audience confusion. In his view, the campaign was simply playful and designed to cut through attention fatigue.

How did the box office frame the pressure around the release?

The first-weekend numbers gave the film a clear but modest start. Lee Cronin’s The Mummy debuted to $13. 5 million, placing it fourth among horror openings this year behind Scream 7, Send Help, and Iron Lung, while just ahead of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Its $22 million production cost meant that its global total of $34 million was enough to keep the conversation alive, but not enough to remove pressure.

That context makes evil dead rise a useful comparison point. Cronin’s earlier horror film opened to $24. 5 million on roughly the same weekend in 2023 and went on to finish above $67 million. Critics responded more warmly to that release, giving it an 85% score, while The Mummy has fallen to 45%. The numbers do not tell the whole story, but they explain why this newer film has been treated as both a franchise exercise and a test of Cronin’s momentum.

What does this say about horror right now?

The surrounding box-office picture suggests a market that is rewarding recognizable names, while still leaving room for singular horror voices to make a case for themselves. Cronin’s work sits inside that tension. His earlier success gave him access, but the new film’s reception shows how quickly a director can move from breakout status to scrutiny.

There is also a broader pattern in the way horror now travels: one film can trigger arguments about branding, casting expectations, and even whether a marketing joke is a signal or just a joke. Cronin seems intent on keeping the film’s identity separate from older versions of the story, while also accepting that audiences bring memory into the theater with them. In that sense, the title is only part of the story.

Back in the opening weeks of release, the pressure sits where it always does in Hollywood: on the next screening, the next reaction, the next chance to prove that a new version can live on its own. For Cronin, evil dead rise remains the benchmark, but The Mummy now asks a different question — how much room does a filmmaker get to reinvent a classic before the audience decides what it thinks the movie is?