Veteran stage and screen performer Courtney B. Vance has joined the cast of The Mummy, Universal’s upcoming revamp of the monster mainstay. Tom Cruise leads the latest monster mash with Alex Kurtzman (People Like Us) directing; Universal is hoping this will kick-off a string of films from their classic monster collection in an extended movie universe kind of way. Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service), Annabelle Wallis (The Brothers Grimsby) and Jake Johnson (Jurassic World) also appear in the film.

The casting of Vance comes just as the actor has received tremendous critical acclaim (and a likely Emmy nomination) for his portrayal of Johnnie Cochran in The People vs. O.J. Simpson. The venerable character has also recently recurred on the television shows Masters of Sex and State of Affairs; his last big-screen appearance was in last summer’s Terminator: Genisys. In The Mummy, Vance will be portraying a colonial.

The Mummy property has been a sweet part of Universal’s lineage back in their great monster movie of the 1930s and 1940s. Boris Karloff spooked audience for the first time in 1932’s The Mummy. More recently, the studio held a successful franchise with Brendan Fraser headlining both The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001); that last film even spun-off with The Scorpion King a year later, a film that helped catapult Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson onward to movie stardom. This latest revival is yet another big studio attempt at an extended cinematic universe. Joe Spaihts, prolific screenwriter behind Prometheus (2012) and the upcoming Doctor Strange and Passengers, penned the screenplay.

The Mummy is due to hit theaters on June 9, 2017.