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The Indiana Jones Replacement That Roger Ebert Was “Unreasonably Pleased” With Is Officially Leaving HBO Max

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To alleviate some of the confusion surrounding a new adaptation of The Mummy, Warner Bros. and producer Jason Blum had to come up with a solution. The idea they landed on didn’t really help. They agreed that the movie should be titled Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, which left general audiences wondering who the two-movie-old Cronin was, and what he was doing with the action-adventure franchise that millennials watched repeatedly on television. As it turned out, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy was a standalone horror movie that had nothing to do with the franchise headlined by Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. But it was too late; the movie received mediocre reviews and underperformed at the box office, grossing $90 million worldwide against a reported budget of $22 million. Around the same time, Universal announced that Fraser and Weisz would be returning for a fourth installment of their popular franchise.

The series began with the 1999 movie The Mummy, which grossed more than $420 million worldwide against a reported budget of $80 million. It’s currently streaming in the United States on HBO Max, but not for much longer. Directed by Stephen Sommers, the movie spawned a direct sequel titled The Mummy Returns. It grossed more than $435 million worldwide against a reported budget of nearly $100 million. Fraser returned for a third installment titled The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which was released in 2008. The third installment was a hit as well, grossing more than $405 million worldwide against a reported budget of $145 million. The only reason Universal didn’t get another installment off the ground immediately was that Fraser wanted to take some time for himself. Now that he is back — he won an Oscar for his comeback performance in The Whale — a fourth installment seems like a home run.

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Collider Exclusive · Middle-earth Quiz
Which Lord of the Rings
Character Are You?

One Quiz · Ten Questions · Your Fate Revealed

The road goes ever on. From the green hills of the Shire to the fires of Mount Doom, every soul in Middle-earth carries a destiny. Ten questions stand between you and the truth of who you are. Answer honestly — the One Ring has a way of revealing what we most want to hide.

💍Frodo

🌿Samwise

👑Aragorn

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🔥Gandalf

🏹Legolas

⚒️Gimli

👁️Sauron

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🪨Gollum

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01

You are handed a responsibility that could destroy you. What do you do?
The weight of the world falls on unlikely shoulders.




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02

Your closest companion is heading into terrible danger. You:
True loyalty is revealed not in comfort, but in crisis.




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03

Enormous power is within your reach. Your instinct is:
Power corrupts — but only those who reach for it.




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04

What does “home” mean to you?
Where we long to return reveals who we truly are.




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05

When a battle is upon you, your approach is:
War reveals what we are made of — whether we like it or not.




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06

Someone comes to you for advice in their darkest hour. You:
Wisdom is not knowing all the answers — it’s knowing which questions to ask.




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07

How do you see yourself, honestly?
Self-knowledge is the most dangerous kind.




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08

Which of these best describes your relationship with the natural world?
Middle-earth speaks to those who know how to listen.




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09

You encounter a wretched, pitiable creature who has done terrible things. You:
How we treat the fallen reveals the height of our character.




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10

When the quest is over and the songs are sung, what do you hope they say about you?
In the end, we are all just stories.




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The Fellowship Has Spoken
Your Place in Middle-earth

The scores below reveal your true character. Your highest number is your match. Even a tie tells a story — the Fellowship was never made of simple people.

💍
Frodo

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🌿
Samwise

👑
Aragorn

🔥
Gandalf

🏹
Legolas

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⚒️
Gimli

👁️
Sauron

🪨
Gollum

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You carry something heavy — and you carry it alone, even when you don’t have to. You were not born for greatness, and that is precisely why greatness chose you. Your courage is not the roaring, sword-swinging kind; it is quiet, stubborn, and terrifying in its refusal to quit. The Ring weighs on you more than anyone can see, and still you walk toward the fire. That is not weakness. That is the rarest kind of strength there is.

You are, without question, the best of them. Not the most powerful, not the most celebrated — but the most essential. Your loyalty is not a trait; it is a force of nature. You would carry the person you love up the slopes of Mount Doom if it came to that, and we both know you’d do it without being asked. The world needs more people like you, and the world is lucky it has even one.

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You were born to lead, and you have spent years running from it. The crown is yours by right, but you know better than anyone that right means nothing without the will and the worthiness to back it up. You are tempered by loss, shaped by long roads, and defined by a code of honour you hold to even when no one is watching. When you finally step forward, the world shifts. Because it was always waiting for you.

You have seen more than you let on, and you say less than you know — which is exactly as it should be. You are a catalyst: you do not fight the battles yourself, you ignite the people who can. Your wisdom comes not from books but from an age of watching what happens when it is ignored. You arrive precisely when you mean to, and your presence alone changes what is possible. A wizard is never late.

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Graceful, perceptive, and almost preternaturally calm under pressure — you see things others miss and act before others react. You do not need to make a scene to be remarkable; your presence speaks for itself. You are loyal to those you choose to stand beside, and that choice is not made lightly. You have lived long enough to know that the most beautiful things in this world are also the most fragile, and that is why you fight to protect them.

You are loud, proud, and absolutely formidable — and beneath all of that is one of the most fiercely loyal hearts in Middle-earth. You don’t do anything by half measures. Your friendships are forged like iron, your grudges run as deep as mines, and your courage in battle is the kind that makes legends. You came into this fellowship suspicious of everyone and ended it willing to die for an elf. That is not a small thing. That is everything.

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You think in centuries and act in absolutes. Order, dominion, control — not because you are cruel by nature, but because you have decided that the world left to itself always falls apart, and you are the only one with the vision and the will to hold it together. You were not always this. Something was lost, or taken, or betrayed, and the version of you that stands now is the answer to that wound. The tragedy is that you’re not entirely wrong — just entirely too far gone to course-correct.

You are a study in contradiction — pitiable and dangerous, cunning and broken, capable of both cruelty and something that once resembled love. You are defined by loss: of innocence, of self, of the one thing that gave your existence meaning. Two voices war inside you constantly, and the tragedy is that the better one sometimes wins, just not often enough, and never at the right moment. You are a warning, yes — but also a mirror. We are all a little Gollum, given the right ring and enough time.

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Here’s How Long You Have Left to Watch ‘The Mummy’ on HBO Max

The new film will be directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the filmmaker duo known as Radio Silence, who successfully rebooted the Scream franchise some years ago. They’d hope to take the franchise to a degree of critical acclaim that has so far eluded it. Despite its success, The Mummy wasn’t all that well-received by critics. It holds a 64% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. That said, Roger Ebert was an early defender of the movie, writing in his review, “There is hardly a thing I can say in its favor, except that I was cheered by nearly every minute of it. I cannot argue for the script, the direction, the acting or even the mummy, but I can say that I was not bored and sometimes I was unreasonably pleased.” You can watch The Mummy on HBO Max until September 1, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.


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Release Date
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April 16, 1999

Runtime

124 minutes

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Producers

James Jacks, Kevin Jarre

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