Courtney B. Vance

If you’re wondering why American Crime Story’s third, Versace-based season has made considerably more press than Season 2’s Katrina, there’s good reason. FX confirms that Versace will now serve as Season 2, as Katrina shores up its returning cast and special effects.

To understand why I’m more excited than most for The Mummy, it’s important to make a list of all the things that I’m a sucker for. Tom Cruise movies? Check. Trailers or commercials that use the Rolling Stones’ ‘Paint it Black’ as a musical cue? Check-check. Movies where soldiers fight monsters? Check-check-check. In fact, if you do the math, the only thing on my Hollywood wishlist that the second The Mummy trailer doesn’t deliver is a John Wick-style gunfight, and there’s still time. One of those might still find its way into the final movie.

Every year, when the bottom drops out of the summer movie season and audiences decide to stay home and watch television instead, some well-meaning critic will publish an article asking if cinema is dead. And every year, I pose the same question in response: “Is Tom Cruise still an action star?” As long as Tom Cruise is running across multiplex screens — fighting rogue nations, government consiparcies, and even the occasional mummy — there is still hope for cinema. Then, when Cruise’s career is done and Hollywood is in ashes, then, cinema, you have my permission to die.

“A bunch of hilarious people have one crazy, drunken night” is a familiar plot, and thanks to last year’s The Night Before, we’ve seen what happens when you put that in the context of holiday spirit — which makes this trailer for Office Christmas Party kind of impressive, considering how amusing it looks despite the fact that it feels like something we’ve seen before (Jillian Bell included).

There were many great performances in American Crime Story: The People v O.J. Simpson, and Courtney B. Vance’s portrayal of defense attorney Johnnie Cochran was one of the absolute best (to say nothing of fellow MVPs Sarah Paulson and Sterling K. Brown). It looks like critics and audiences weren’t the only fans of Vance’s work on the series, as the actor is making a pretty big leap to the big screen, joining Tom Cruise in Alex Kurtzman’s reboot of The Mummy.