Tom Cruise

“Witness the beginning of a dark universe!” The new trailer for The Mummy is going all-in on this Universal Monsters cinematic universe idea. (And also throwing shade at Dracula Untold. Wasn’t that the beginning of this thing? Poor Luke Evans.)

From the outset, it seemed like Russell Crowe’s part in The Mummy might be more of a glorified cameo, with his role as Dr. Jekyll teasing the larger world of “gods and monsters.” Not only does this new featurette from the upcoming reboot reveal that Crowe has a much more significant role to play, but it also gives us our first (very brief) look at his famous other half, the sinister Mr. Hyde.

Mother’s Day might be this weekend, but we’ll have to wait another week for Universal Pictures’ just-announced Mummy Day, a.k.a. a whole day, starting at noon on May 20, dedicated to erecting a 75-foot-tall sarcophagus at the intersection of Hollywood and Highland in Los Angeles. Oh, and Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Jake Johnson, Annabelle Wallis, and director Alex Kurtzman will be there too.

If we’re being honest with each other, I’m not typically a big fan of behind-the-scenes videos and features. These days they all seem the same: an actor jumps in front of a blue background and lands on a blue foam pad, and everyone stands up and smiles at each other for a job well done. My one big exception is Tom Cruise movies. Cruise’s action films are a testament to doing things the hard way, so every highlight reel of the actor slamming into cars, hitting his head against walls, or getting punched in the face is a testament to a dying trade.

Are we still doing #SquadGoals? Because if so, I think I’ve found mine. Earlier today, Mission: Impossible 6 director Christopher McQuarrie posted a photo of himself hanging out with series stalwart Tom Cruise and dashing newcomer Henry Cavill against the Eiffel Tower, raising the bar for family vacation photos everywhere. If I worked in the photo department at the local Walgreens and saw this in someone’s film roll, I would put a sign up on the door that said “No More Eiffel Tower Photos” for everyone to see. What’s the point? They’ll never be this cool.

Here’s a story you might’ve missed this past week. With the Fast and the Furious franchise under his belt, we’ve sorta learned to take Dwayne Johnson’s star power for granted. After all, Johnson was the highest grossing male box office star of 2016, suggesting that all you need is a half-decent fight choreographer and Johnson to gross $100 million at the box office. That being said, there was a time not so long ago when Johnson could still go after major Hollywood roles and lose out to more established actors. One such movie was Jack Reacher, which was a role the actor revealed he lost to Tom Cruise.

Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie seems to have developed a pretty strong working relationship with Tom Cruise. In addition to working with the actor on the highly regarded Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation movie, McQuarrie had previously directed Cruise in Jack Reacher while also serving as either a producer or screenwriter on Jack Reacher 2 and Cruise’s upcoming Universal Monsters movie The Mummy. When it comes to actor-director pairings, there’s no denying McQuarrie and Cruise are one of the more impressive duos at work these days.

To understand why I’m more excited than most for The Mummy, it’s important to make a list of all the things that I’m a sucker for. Tom Cruise movies? Check. Trailers or commercials that use the Rolling Stones’ ‘Paint it Black’ as a musical cue? Check-check. Movies where soldiers fight monsters? Check-check-check. In fact, if you do the math, the only thing on my Hollywood wishlist that the second The Mummy trailer doesn’t deliver is a John Wick-style gunfight, and there’s still time. One of those might still find its way into the final movie.

Watching the Mission: Impossible movies is like watching Tom Cruise engage in a series of escalating dares. Like the Fast and the Furious franchise, each new M:I movie features an increasingly bonkers stunt scene, made all the more impressive by Cruise’s dedication to performing his own stunts (or as much of them as humanly possible). It’s hard to imagine how Cruise and returning writer / director Christopher McQuarrie will outdo Rogue Nation’s riveting plane sequence, but according to the producer of Mission: Impossible 6, they have something “mind-blowing” up their sleeves. How mind-blowing? Well, Cruise has been training for the stunt for a whole year.

Every year, when the bottom drops out of the summer movie season and audiences decide to stay home and watch television instead, some well-meaning critic will publish an article asking if cinema is dead. And every year, I pose the same question in response: “Is Tom Cruise still an action star?” As long as Tom Cruise is running across multiplex screens — fighting rogue nations, government consiparcies, and even the occasional mummy — there is still hope for cinema. Then, when Cruise’s career is done and Hollywood is in ashes, then, cinema, you have my permission to die.

Everyone knows Iron Man as the cornerstone of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Sark, the man who plays Marvel’s Shellhead. But did you know before Downey got the role and Marvel started its cinematic universe, Tom Cruise wanted to play Tony Stark? At one point, Cruise wanted to star in and produce an Iron Man movie. That’s just one of the Tom Cruise facts featured in the newest episode of You Think You Know Movies!

Pre-production on Mission: Impossible 6 came to a halt last month when a contract dispute between Tom Cruise and Paramount threatened to stall the sixth installment in the blockbuster franchise. The sticking point? Cruise wanted the studio to match — or top — what Universal is paying him to star in The Mummy reboot, but Paramount was a little contentious…yeah right, as if they weren’t going to give Tom Cruise, the star of one of their biggest franchises, what he wants.