The Poster For 1932's The Mummy Is Auctioning For $1 Million

For an 86 year old, The Mummy is looking pretty good. So good, in fact, that an original poster for the movie is set to go up for auction  at Sotheby’s, to the tune of between $1 million to $1.5 million. The last time it traded hands, again at auction, was in 1997, when it wrapped up $453.5K.

As that Guardian article mentions, The Mummy came along during a wave of cultural interest in artifacts of ancient Egypt. King Tut’s tomb had just been discovered in 1922, at the time one of the most important archaeological finds to date. In response, movie culture did what it always does and cashed in on the fad; The Mummy led a franchise of mummy movies which lasted into WWII.

In fact, well after the initial interest in King Tut had died out, it was revived in the 1970s. Starting in 1976, the "Treasures of Tutankhamun” museum exhibit made a round through the US for showing in seven states. Once again, mummies and Egyptian artifacts started popping up in popular culture.

To this day, whenever a museum is depicted in a movie, there’s usually an Egyptian sarcophagus there, such as The Frighteners . And of course, Egyptian artifacts, mummified remains, and gods with weird heads continue to be a common horror movie plot device, from Bubba Ho-tep to Puppet Master to Blood Diner .

By the way, if you want to view more great horror movie posters, AllHorror has a Pinterest folder just for movie posters - and it won’t even cost you a million dollars!

Oh, that ‘70s wave of interest in King Tut? You know we can’t let it go without posting this hit novelty song by our favorite honky, Steve Martin:

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