The Mummy 2017 Ending Explained

The Mummy ending gives Tom Cruise's Nick Morton the power of the Egyptian god of death, Set, setting up a shared universe team-up that never happened. The Mummy (2017) was meant to kickstart Universal's Dark Universe with an MCU-style crossover between universal monsters like The Invisible Man (to be played by Johnny Depp) and Frankenstein’s Monster (played by Javier Bardem). However, the box office flop and critical lashing of The Mummy ended those plans before they started. The The Mummy ending includes a set-up for sequels and spin-offs that will never happen.

Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) and Chris Vail (Jake Johnson) are supposed to be part of an advanced Army scouting team in Iraq, but they're sneaking off to recover ancient artifacts to sell on the black market. This gets them in trouble when they discover the tomb of the ancient cursed Egyptian princess Ahmanet, and she makes Nick her chosen vessel to channel the power of Set into a human form. With the help of Henry Jekyll (Russel Crowe) and the Prodigium, Ahmanet is captured, although Nick inherits the curse of set and must search for a cure.

Why Nick Stabbed Himself With the Dagger of Set

Wasn't Ahmanet Going to Stab Him Anyway?

In the beginning of The Mummy, the Egyptian princess Ahmanet made a pact with Set, the Egyptian god of Death (although in reality, ancient Egyptians recognized Anubis as the god of Death, while Set was the god of chaos and violence) to bring him into a physical body. Ahmanet received the dagger of Set, which gave her enormous powers, but she's killed before she could make a human sacrifice with it to bring set into the world. After she's revived in the 21st century, Ahmanet retrieves the dagger and chooses Nick as the new host body for Set.

Initially, he resists, but then he steals the dagger and stabs himself with it. If Ahmanet's plan was to kill Nick with the dagger of Set in order to bring the Egyptian god into Nick's body, then wouldn't Nick stabbing himself with the dagger simply accomplish Ahmanet's plan?

The key to this moment is Ahmanet urging Nick to "give in." He's resisting the sacrifice, and as is seen after he stabs himself and learns to resist the control of Set, things didn't happen exactly the way Ahmanet wanted them to. Because Nick was now in control of his own body and Set's powers, he sucked the life out of Ahmanet and resurrected Jenny, which wouldn't have happened if he'd given in.

What Did Nick Become?

Is He a God Now?

After his transformation, Nick tells Jenny, "I don't know what I am." According to Dr. Henry Jekyll's monologue in the movie's opening, Ahmanet was going to "bring the demon into our world in the body of a mortal man,"but The Mummy doesn't actually explain very much about the powers Set has or what a mortal man with the powers of Set can do.

Henry says Nick is a cursed "monster" and will continue to search the world for a way to break the curse.

Set gives Ahmanet her powers, and she has the ability to raise the dead, some level of invulnerability, super strength, the ability to control sand, she can suck the life out of people, and she can enter people's minds to some extent. Some of those abilities manifest in Nick. Henry says Nick is a cursed "monster" and will continue to search the world for a way to break the curse, although Jenny points out that he's still "a good man," although Henry isn't sure if he'll choose good or evil as he continues to discover his powers.

Outside of specific abilities, Nick normally looks exactly like he did before, although when he yells "wake up" to resurrect Jenny, his eyes both split into two separate sets of iris and pupil, he gets similar tattoos to Ahmanet down his face, he has a mouth full of sharp teeth, and he speaks with a demonic sounding voice. The ending of the movie is clearly a sort of origin story for Nick, so there were likely plans to flesh out his powers in a more specific way in later installments.

His powers seem to be basically identical to Ahmanet

However, since that's unlikely to happen, viewers can only infer what the Set-possessed Nick is capable of based on what's presented in the movie. For the most part, his powers seem to be basically identical to Ahmanet, although one big difference is both Chris and Jenny are fully resurrected humans, and Chris's face injuries have been totally healed, while all the undead raised by Ahmanet are more like mindless zombies.

Are Henry and the Prodigium Good or Bad?

Henry Jekyll's Shady Organization Explained

The Mummy doesn't explain a lot about Henry Jekyll and the Prodigium, but what is included reveals a shady organization that employs questionable ethics in its attempt to protect the world against dark supernatural powers. In traditional lore, Dr. Henry Jekyll is the "good" side of the split personalities that occupy his body, with Mr. Edward "Eddie" Hyde.

In The Mummy, Dr. Jekyll uses regular serum injections to keep the malevolent Eddie at bay, but when Eddie breaks through to gain control, his face becomes more sinister and he acquires greater strength and toughness. Similar to his split personality, the Prodigium's alignment isn't completely pure. Henry says the name Prodigium comes from the latin term "monstrum vel prodigium," which means "a warning of monsters."

The Black Book of the Dead from Brandon Fraser's 1999 The Mummy appears briefly at The Prodigium in The Mummy 2017, suggesting the two movies exist in the same universe.

At the start of The Mummy, they're shown tracking down the gem from the hilt of the dagger of Set. At the Prodigium headquarters, there's evidence of the organization combatting and researching other dark forces or monsters, such as a vampire skull or the arm of a fish-man, so they've clearly been at work in the shadows for a while. Henry's plan to kill Nick is brutal and cold-blooded, but knowing the danger the powers of Set and Ahmanet posed to the world, they had few options.

The Mummy (2017) Ending and Sequel Set-Up Explained

The Dark Universe's Avengers Plans Ended Before They Began

At the end of The Mummy, Ahmanet is defeated and her body is locked deep in a Prodigium vault and Nick sets off to scour the world in search of a cure for the curse of Set. Henry and the Prodigium seem to have backed off from their desire to kill Nick, but they're keeping their eye on him to make sure they're ready if he succumbs to his evil urges.

Henry and the Prodigium are clearly set up as a sort of Nick Fury/SHIELD analog from the MCU.

In the Dark Universe, Henry and the Prodigium are clearly set up as a sort of Nick Fury/SHIELD analog from the MCU. In the early days of the MCU, Fury and SHIELD were way more morally ambiguous, so it's a very similar setup. Since Nick gains powers from Set, The Mummy serves as a bit of an origin story for him. With other monsters like The Invisible Man and Frankenstein's Monster planned to join the universe with a sort of Avengers team-up, the universe had much bigger plans before it was canceled.

Overall, the ending of The Mummy seems purposefully ambiguous about the nature of Nick's powers and Prodigium's plans to allow flexibility in the Dark Universe's expansion, but with the franchise's early cancelation, none of that set-up will come to fruition.

How The Mummy Ending Was Received

Most Fans & Critics Felt The Ending Was Tacked On

Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekell in The Mummy.

Critics and audiences alike ravaged The Mummy in reviews. Critics rated it at a score of 15% on Rotten Tomatoes, while the audience rated it at a low 35%. One thing that many audience members didn't like was the setup at the end for more movies. One audience reviewer wrote, "Russell Crowe feels completely in the wrong movie, his character feels like an unnecessary cameo. It feels exactly like a unnecessary cameo to pitch the next movie in the franchise." SIght and Sound critic Kim Newman agreed, writing:

"All it has to offer is silly ideas (the mummy is buried in mercury), impressive-in-the-trailer / meaningless-in-the-movie images (the snarling giant sandstorm face is lifted from the 1999 Mummy) and loose ends to be picked up later (including whatever the hell Russell Crowe’s deeply unimpressive Jekyll-and-Hyde is doing). Honestly, the franchise was better served by Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)."

There was also a Reddit thread, where some viewers decided that the entire ending of The Mummy made no sense, comparing it to how Raiders of the Lost Ark would have ended the same way even if Indiana Jones wasn't there. The OP wrote, "Ahmanet main's plan was to stab Morton with that dagger, and awaken Seth with that. But we all that how the film ends: he stabs the dagger on himself, gains seth power, resists, and kills the Mummy... The Villain will never win, because no matter the circunstances, Ahmanet would NEVER win."