Hugh Jackman’s $300M Mummy Rival Officially Gets New Streaming Home This Week
Grant Hermanns is a TV News Editor, Interview Host and Reviewer for ScreenRant, having joined the team in early 2021. He got his start in the industry with Moviepilot, followed by working at ComingSoon.net. When not indulging in his love of film/TV, Grant is making his way through his gaming backlog and exploring the world of Dungeons & Dragons with friends.
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Hugh Jackman's cult favorite fantasy action hit has set its sights on a new streaming home.
The past few years have proven to be some of Jackman's busiest yet, as he not only returned to the stage with the Broadway revival of The Music Man and Off Broadway Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, but also reprised his fan-favorite Marvel role for Deadpool & Wolverine. This year has thus far given him multiple record-breaking releases, including The Sheep Detectives, which became his best-reviewed film of all-time on Rotten Tomatoes, and The Death of Robin Hood, which landed the highest Audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for a Robin Hood adaptation in 33 years.
Serving as a reimagining of the classic Bram Stoker character, Van Helsing starred Jackman as the eponymous monster hunter who, working for the secretive Knights of the Holy Order, is sent to Transylvania to fight Dracula and protect the last descendants of an ancient Romanian family from becoming his victims. Upon arrival, Helsing quickly learns that the ancient vampire has been amassing an army of other iconic monsters, including Frankenstein's monster and werewolves.
Also starring Kate Beckinsale, David Wenham, Richard Roxburgh as Dracula, Shuler Hensley as Frankenstein's monster and Kevin J. O'Connor as former Frankenstein assistant Igor, Van Helsing launched as part of Universal's efforts to reinvigorate their Classic Monsters library after the runaway success of the Brendan Fraser-led Mummy movies. Despite again being written and directed by Stephen Sommers, the film garnered generally negative reviews and didn't quite enjoy the same box office returns, but has garnered a modest following in the years since.
Jackman's Van Helsing Is About To Get New Life On Peacock
From Sydney Drama School to the MCU · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Hugh Jackman? “I’m the best there is at what I do, bub.”
🪟The WolverineSnikt!
🎪P.T. BarnumThis is the greatest show
🎗️Jean ValjeanWho am I? 24601
🌖From Down UnderG’day, mate
🏆Tony AwardBoy from Oz
01
Hugh Michael Jackman was born on October 12, 1968, the youngest of five children to English-born parents who’d emigrated to Australia just before his birth. He attended the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts but grew up in the harbour city he’d return to throughout his career. Which Australian city is Jackman’s hometown?
✓ Correct! Sydney. Jackman grew up in the suburb of Pymble on the city’s North Shore, attended Knox Grammar School, and only moved across the country to Perth in 1991 to study at WAAPA. Sydney remains his Australian home base — he was famously seen at the Sydney Opera House handing over an Australian of the Year award and used Bondi Beach for some of his most iconic shirtless paparazzi shots.
✗ Wrong city. The answer is Sydney. Perth is where he attended the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (1991–94). Melbourne and Brisbane don’t feature in his early biography. Sydney’s North Shore is where he spent his entire childhood after his parents emigrated from England in 1967.
02
Bryan Singer’s first X-Men film is widely credited with launching the modern superhero blockbuster era and gave the then-31-year-old Jackman his breakthrough Hollywood role as Logan/Wolverine. The film opened against expectations to the biggest superhero opening weekend ever recorded at the time. In which year did it release?
✓ Correct! 2000. X-Men hit theatres on July 14, 2000, and grossed over $54 million in its opening weekend — a then-record for a comic book movie and the spark that lit the modern superhero film boom (Spider-Man followed two years later, kicking off the 2000s comic-book gold rush). Jackman’s arc as Wolverine ran a remarkable 24 years, from 2000 to Deadpool & Wolverine in 2024.
✗ Wrong year. The answer is 2000. 1998 is when Blade kicked off the Marvel-on-screen wave but it’s not an X-Men film. 1999 saw The Matrix redefine action filmmaking but X-Men was still in production. 2002 is when Spider-Man followed X-Men’s success. Bryan Singer’s X-Men was a July 2000 release.
03
Jackman almost wasn’t Wolverine. The role was originally cast with another actor — a Scottish star fresh off Mission: Impossible 2 villainy — who had to drop out three weeks into filming because of M:I-2 reshoot scheduling. Jackman flew in as a replacement and the rest is genre history. Name the actor he replaced.
✓ Correct! Dougray Scott. The Scottish actor was officially cast as Wolverine in 1999, but John Woo’s Mission: Impossible 2 (where Scott plays the villain Sean Ambrose) ran badly over schedule and forced him to step away. Bryan Singer brought Jackman in on Russell Crowe’s recommendation. Scott has since called the lost role one of the great regrets of his career.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Dougray Scott. Russell Crowe was offered the role and declined — but it’s Crowe who recommended Jackman to Singer. Mel Gibson was floated in early rumours but never officially attached. Edward Norton wasn’t in the running. Scott is the actor who was actually cast and had to bow out due to M:I-2 going long.
04
In 2004, Jackman won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for playing the flamboyant Australian songwriter Peter Allen, ex-husband to Liza Minnelli, on Broadway. The performance — eight shows a week, costume changes, full song-and-dance numbers — sealed his reputation as Hollywood’s rare bona fide musical-theatre triple threat. Name the show.
✓ Correct! The Boy from Oz, the Peter Allen jukebox biographical musical that ran on Broadway from October 2003 to September 2004. Jackman’s eight-shows-a-week performance won him both the Tony and a Drama Desk Award — he was the only cast member nominated, and held the entire show together largely alone for nearly a year. The role essentially redefined his Hollywood persona.
✗ Wrong. The answer is The Boy from Oz. Jackman did star in a 1998 Royal National Theatre production of Oklahoma! (his first major UK breakthrough) but didn’t win the Tony for it. He hosted the Tonys multiple times and was nominated for The Music Man (2022 revival), but his actual Tony win is for The Boy from Oz, playing Peter Allen.
05
In 2017’s sleeper-hit musical The Greatest Showman, Jackman plays a 19th-century American showman who builds a famous traveling circus and museum out of nothing. The film opened soft against Star Wars: The Last Jedi but legged out to over $435 million worldwide on word of mouth and a chart-topping soundtrack. Whom does Jackman portray?
✓ Correct! P.T. Barnum — the 19th-century circus impresario behind what would become the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The film’s heavily fictionalised version of Barnum is a romantic underdog rather than the hucksterish showman of historical record, and the Pasek & Paul soundtrack — including “This Is Me” (which won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song) and “The Greatest Show” — spent months at the top of the Billboard 200.
✗ Wrong. The answer is P.T. Barnum. Buffalo Bill Cody ran a Wild West show but wasn’t Jackman’s subject. Harry Houdini was an early-20th-century escape artist. Andrew Carnegie was a steel magnate, not a circus impresario. The Greatest Showman is the heavily fictionalised story of Phineas Taylor Barnum.
06
In Tom Hooper’s 2012 live-sung adaptation of Les Misérables, Jackman plays the parolee-turned-mayor protagonist hunted across decades of post-Napoleonic France by Russell Crowe’s Inspector Javert. The role earned Jackman a Best Actor Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe win. Name the character.
✓ Correct! Jean Valjean — prisoner 24601, paroled after 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread, who becomes the mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer and adoptive father to Cosette. Tom Hooper recorded the actors singing live on set rather than dubbing in post, which was hard on cast voices but produced Jackman’s intense, breathy “Bring Him Home.” The role earned him an Oscar nomination, a Golden Globe win and the BAFTA for Best Actor.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Jean Valjean. Marius Pontmercy is the young revolutionary played by Eddie Redmayne. Enjolras is the student leader played by Aaron Tveit. Bishop Myriel — played by original-cast Valjean Colm Wilkinson — is the priest who gives Valjean the candlesticks early in the film. Jackman is Valjean, the show’s lead.
07
Marketed as Jackman’s farewell to the role he’d held for 17 years, this 2017 R-rated, near-future Western from director James Mangold features an ailing Logan, a deteriorating Charles Xavier and a young clone called X-23 (Dafne Keen). It earned an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay — a first for a comic-book movie. Name the film.
✓ Correct! Logan (March 2017). James Mangold’s loose adaptation of the comic Old Man Logan transplanted Wolverine into a Western-elegy register and committed fully to the R-rating, with bone-claw violence Fox had previously kept off-screen. It became one of the highest-grossing R-rated films of all time, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, and was widely treated as Jackman’s definitive farewell — until 2024.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Logan. The Wolverine (2013) is Mangold’s previous, Japan-set solo film. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) is the much-derided origin story with Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth. Days of Future Past (2014) is the time-travel ensemble. Logan is the 2017 R-rated “final” chapter that earned the screenplay Oscar nod.
08
After his “final” bow in Logan, Jackman shocked fans in 2022 with a self-recorded Instagram video announcing he’d be returning to the role. The result was a 2024 R-rated MCU buddy team-up alongside Ryan Reynolds — the first R-rated film in the Marvel Studios canon, and the first appearance of Wolverine in his classic yellow-and-blue comic-book costume. Name the film.
✓ Correct! Deadpool & Wolverine (July 2024) — Shawn Levy directed, Jackman wore the comic-accurate yellow-and-blue costume for the first time, and the film grossed over $1.3 billion worldwide to become the highest-grossing R-rated film ever. It was both Marvel Studios’ first R-rated outing and the formal merger of the X-Men franchise into the MCU after the 2019 Disney–Fox acquisition.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Deadpool & Wolverine. Avengers: Secret Wars is a planned 2027 Phase 6 release. There’s no film called “X-Men Reborn,” and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) is the much earlier prequel. Deadpool & Wolverine is the 2024 Shawn Levy-directed buddy team-up that brought Jackman back from his Logan retirement.
The Showman · Final Bow Your Hugh Jackman Standing
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Master of three crafts — or just a Wolverine fan?
Now, some 22 years after hitting theaters, Van Helsing is getting a new streaming home on Peacock. Jackman's fantasy action movie will officially begin streaming on the NBCUniversal-owned platform on October 1, not only marking perfect timing for the Halloween season, but also as the first two of Fraser's Mummy movies will begin streaming there on the same day. Thus far, the film has been available to stream on Prime Video, and at the time of writing, there's been no indication whether it will leave the Amazon platform soon.
In addition to expanding its streaming presence, Van Helsing shifting to Peacock comes at a unique point for the film as it's also gearing up for a major new 4K Ultra-HD collector's edition. While not the first time it's gotten a 4K upgrade, it is the first Steelbook iteration of the film in 13 years, with the previous one being released in 2013 as part of Universal Pictures' push into collectible Steelbooks with a collection of comic book-style cases.
Jackman's Van Helsing Was Meant To Be An Ongoing Franchise
As previously denoted, Universal was keen on trying to replicate their success with the first two of Fraser's Mummy movies, which had already grossed a combined $886 million worldwide at that point, when they went into Van Helsing's development. They certainly spared no expense in trying to pull off their plans, as they not only reportedly spent $170 million just on the film's production budget, but also a video game and an animated prequel.
Most notably was that, because they spent so much money on constructing the sets depicting the various Transylvania locations, Universal paid to keep the sets intact for both a spinoff series and a Van Helsing sequel. While not considered a box office failure, the movie's underperformance compared to The Mummy installments, grossing just over $300 million, was low enough to see the studio scrap their plans entirely.
That wasn't necessarily the end of the road for the character in Universal's eyes, though. Multiple attempts at a Van Helsing reboot have been made by the studio, including one with Tom Cruise set to lead, only for those plans to shift when he starred in The Mummy reboot that failed to launch the interconnected Dark Universe. The reboot later regained steam in 2020 with The Pope's Exorcist's Julius Avery signing on to direct and rewrite, while James Wan would produce, with the only update coming in 2023 that Avery was still attached, but no clear indication of progress was made.
With Universal simultaneously shifting to standalone stories for their Classic Monsters library, and returning to Fraser's Mummy franchise with a long-awaited fourth film, the door is certainly open for Van Helsing to either return in rebooted fashion or with Jackman back, given he recently expressed an openness to return. A renewed boost on streaming charts would certainly go a long way to showing the studio that audiences are still keen to see the character get another solo outing.
- Main Genre
- Horror
- Studio(s)
- Universal Pictures, The Sommers Company, Stillking Films
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