The Mummy: Russell Crowe says Tom Cruise movie will scare the s-- out of you

Earlier this week, EW reported that Russell Crowe was in talks to join Tom Cruise in Universal’s reboot of The Mummy. Now the news has been confirmed by Crowe himself, who says the film is “designed to seriously scare the s– out of you.”

“I’m gonna play Dr. Henry Jekyll, Fellow of the Royal Society,” he told Collider during an interview. “It’s very interesting, what they’re gonna do with that stuff. I’ve had a couple of chats about it with the director [Alex Kurtzman]. I’ve known Tom Cruise since 1992, or something like that. When he was married to an Australian, I was really good friends with him. But when he got divorced, I was part of the settlement package, and I went to Nicole [Kidman].”

The Nice Guys star went on to praise Kurtzman and the creative collaboration. “How they’ve pulled all of this stuff forward into a contemporary world and how they’re building it out from there, and how all of the different character[s] interweave into each other’s stories, it’s fantastic.”

Crowe also joins Sofia Boutella (Star Trek Beyond) as the titular mummy, as well as Annabelle Wallis (Netflix’s Peaky Blinders), Jake Johnson (Jurassic World), and Courtney B. Vance (The People vs. O.J. Simpson). Sean Daniel, who produced the Brendan Fraser-led Mummy trilogy, returns to produce alongside Kurtzman and Chris Morgan.

Universal released a plot description for The Mummy as filming continues: “Thought safely entombed in a crypt deep beneath the unforgiving desert, an ancient queen whose destiny was unjustly taken from her is awakened in our current day, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia and terrors that defy human comprehension.

“From the sweeping sands of the Middle East through hidden labyrinths under modern-day London, The Mummy brings a surprising intensity and balance of wonder and thrills in an imaginative new take that ushers in a new world of gods and monsters.”

The Mummy is scheduled for theaters on June 9, 2017.