The Mummy is being resurrected once again by Universal Studios and the new film opens in the US on Friday. This monster reboot starring Tom Cruise has already scored the biggest opening day of all time in South Korea with $6.6 million and is expected to do well domestically thanks to Cruise’s star power, the beginning of Universal’s Dark Universe and a marketing campaign big enough for an Egyptian princess.

In addition to the usual talk show circuit and trailer reveals, Universal is promoting The Mummy with a pop-up VR experience, a special Mummy Day in Hollywood, gigantic props, behind the scenes and celebrating the rich history of Universal monster movies.

NBA stars John Wall, Isaiah Thomas and DeAndre Jordan were featured in a special movie trailer, which was posted on each of their social media accounts to help promote the film during the NBA Playoffs.

The Mummy Zero Gravity Stunt VR Experience

Actor Cruise performs his own stunts and insists that his co-stars do the same. Such was the case with The Mummy, which promises its fair share of explosions and danger. The most notable example from the film is a scene in which Nick Morton (Cruise) and Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) are tossed around a plane that is falling out of the sky. The scene was shot in a reduced gravity aircraft, meaning that it plummeted toward the earth at very real breakneck speeds, inducing a brief loss of gravity.

Fans can experience a 360-degree behind-the-scenes look at the making of this scene thanks to The Mummy Zero Gravity Stunt VR Experience. The pop-up experience combines headsets, haptic feedback and a gyroscopic chair courtesy of Positron Voyager VR platform seats. It first appeared at SXSW, then in New York at the Rockefeller Center and in Los Angeles for a free engagement.

Cruise narrates the VR experience, providing insight with each sequence, and states at the beginning that it was his idea to have the scene shot inside a falling plane for more realistic effects and a greater edge-of-their-seat experience for moviegoers.

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The Mummy Day

On May 20, Universal hosted The Mummy Day in Hollywood with director Alex Kurtzman and the film’s stars. The real star of the show, however, was a 75-foot, seven-ton sarcophagus. Fans were able to see the movie stars up close, obtain autographs, souvenirs and witness the sarcophagus’ unveiling. The giant replica of Princess Ahmanet’s tomb is the largest vertical display to be unveiled at the historic Hollywood and Highland venue. It took eight weeks and 160 hours to construct; 18 wide-load tractor trailers moved all of the elements into place.

In addition to all of the excitement, visitors were also treated to The Mummy Zero Gravity Stunt VR Experience and The Mummy Escape Game, a 10-player live-action experience in which guests are recruited as security guards to solve interactive puzzles to save mankind.

Part Of A Bigger Picture

What has many fans excited is not just The Mummy, but what it represents. It’s the inaugural picture in a new franchise called Dark Universe, in which all the rebooted Universal monsters are intertwined in the same universe. (Think The Avengers, only evil.)

Russell Crowe appears in The Mummy as Dr. Jekyll, and other stars have been announced for future films in the series—Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean) as The Invisible Man, and Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men) as Frankenstein’s Monster.

The next film will be Bride of Frankenstein, scheduled for release in April 2018 and will be directed by Academy Award-winner Bill Condon (Beauty and the Beast).