‘The Mummy’ Confirmed to Take Place in Same Universe as Sam Raimi’s ‘Evil Dead’?!

It didn’t take long for audiences to start connecting the dots. With the release of The Mummy this weekend, directed by Lee Cronin, discussion quickly turned toward an unexpected possibility: this new film appears to exist within the same universe as The Evil Dead, Sam Raimi’s seminal 1981 horror classic.

That speculation is not coming out of nowhere. Viewers who have seen The Mummy will recognize a tonal and stylistic throughline that feels unmistakably aligned with Cronin’s previous film, Evil Dead Rise. Despite blending elements reminiscent of classic mummy horror and The Exorcist, the film leans heavily into the same grotesque violence, relentless brutality, and mean-spirited energy that defined Evil Dead Rise. The connective DNA is difficult to ignore.

Cronin has effectively confirmed what many suspected. In an interview with Collider, he stated that, in his view, The Mummy exists within the same universe as Evil Dead. According to Cronin, there is even a small piece of connective tissue embedded in the film itself. It is subtle – easy to miss – but deliberate: “I’ve definitely thought about that,” he said when asked if the film is canon. “If you pay attention to the name of the archaeologist professor in the movie…he could be a distant relative of some key characters in Evil Dead Rise.”

And within franchise logic, that is enough. A single canonical link, no matter how minor, solidifies the connection. By that standard, The Mummy is now part of the Evil Dead universe.

This development fits into a broader expansion already underway. Evil Dead Rise serves as the first installment in a new trilogy that builds on the foundation laid by Fede Álvarez’s Evil Dead (2013). That film has already been confirmed to share continuity with Raimi’s original trilogy – The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness – as well as the television continuation . What once appeared to be separate reinterpretations has now been unified into a single, sprawling canon. Cronin’s effectively widens that universe even further.