![‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’ Originally Had a Much Bleaker Ending
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy wasn’t our favorite mummy movie, but it did have some recommendable qualities, including its high levels of gruesome gore. We also approved of the ending, which offered a satisfying twist to the agony that came before. And while The Mummy‘s test screenings were targeted by some since-debunked negative rumors (look, James Wan just wanted more snacks, that’s all!), apparently those same early showings helped writer-director Cronin figure out that all-important final note for his film. Star Jack Reynor talked about the original ending and the changes that were made, and we’ll add one of these in case you haven’t yet seen Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. At the end of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, the characters have all realized that young Katie is possessed by a ferocious demon. She was kidnapped years earlier by her friend’s mother, a character the film calls “the Magician,” for the sole purpose of becoming the next containment vessel for this demon over a period of years.
The sarcophagus and wrappings covered in ancient writing she’s entombed in are meant to trap the demon as part of an obligation upheld by the Magician’s family for generations upon generations. The demon starts to escape when the sarcophagus is moved out of necessity from the Magician’s farm. Instead of relocating safely, the sarcophagus breaks open in a plane crash, and Katie—still alive, albeit mummified and barely clinging to her human soul—is sent from Egypt to New Mexico to reunite with her surprised and thankful mother, father, and two siblings.
The bulk of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy follows the creature formerly known as Katie causing horrifying, escalating chaos, while an Egyptian detective pokes into the case overseas, and Katie’s father, Charlie, played by Reynor, does his own research in a desperate attempt to figure out what’s wrong with his daughter.
At the end of the movie, the detective comes to New Mexico and helps Charlie manipulate the demon into leaping out of Katie and into Charlie. He saves his daughter, but dooms himself. That’s where the movie ended originally, apparently. The version that made it into theaters has an additional scene where the Magician, who’s been jailed for kidnapping Katie, gets a visit from a mummified Charlie. Again with the detective’s help, the demon makes another leap between bodies—this time, freeing Charlie and taking over the Magician’s soul instead.
That was a reshoot, Reynor told the Hollywood Reporter. “We came back and picked it up, which was cool because it was the one day where I actually got to be the Mummy. It’s fun to get into the makeup and get to be part of that legacy,” Reynor said, name-checking the Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee versions of the character. Even beyond becoming part of horror history, though, he understood the reason for the change.
“You make these decisions because you want to give the audience what they want, and I understand that. Is it a better movie, objectively speaking? I don’t know. I did like Lee’s original ending,” Reynor admitted. “But I also understand that if I went to see that movie with my teenage kids and they were bummed out because it was so fucking bleak at the end, maybe I’d be [more in favor of the new ending]. So I get it both ways. I see the merits of both for different reasons.” The new ending is cathartic; after all, the Magician was the one who singled Katie out for years of unimaginable torture, not to mention inflicting torment on her family. She deserves some payback other than prison time. But it also left another lingering question: what happens next?
The Magician was the person in charge of handing down the knowledge of how to contain the demon to the next generation. Now that she’s become its current vessel, who will be keeping an eye out? Presumably, that burden now transfers to her only surviving child—a girl around Katie’s age—who’ll have to select a new innocent victim someday and perform the same ritual once her mother’s body starts to break down. We probably won’t get another Lee Cronin’s The Mummy to explore that further, but thinking about it too much does make the new ending a little less suffused with the gleeful spirit of revenge. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Lee #Cronins #Mummy #Originally #BleakerJack Reynor,Lee Cronin’s The Mummy](https://i3.wp.com/gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2025/09/io9-2025-spoiler.png?ssl=1 "‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’ Originally Had a Much Bleaker Ending
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy wasn’t our favorite mummy movie, but it did have some recommendable qualities, including its high levels of gruesome gore. We also approved of the ending, which offered a satisfying twist to the agony that came before. And while The Mummy‘s test screenings were targeted by some since-debunked negative rumors (look, James Wan just wanted more snacks, that’s all!), apparently those same early showings helped writer-director Cronin figure out that all-important final note for his film. Star Jack Reynor talked about the original ending and the changes that were made, and we’ll add one of these in case you haven’t yet seen Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. At the end of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, the characters have all realized that young Katie is possessed by a ferocious demon. She was kidnapped years earlier by her friend’s mother, a character the film calls “the Magician,” for the sole purpose of becoming the next containment vessel for this demon over a period of years.
The sarcophagus and wrappings covered in ancient writing she’s entombed in are meant to trap the demon as part of an obligation upheld by the Magician’s family for generations upon generations. The demon starts to escape when the sarcophagus is moved out of necessity from the Magician’s farm. Instead of relocating safely, the sarcophagus breaks open in a plane crash, and Katie—still alive, albeit mummified and barely clinging to her human soul—is sent from Egypt to New Mexico to reunite with her surprised and thankful mother, father, and two siblings.
The bulk of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy follows the creature formerly known as Katie causing horrifying, escalating chaos, while an Egyptian detective pokes into the case overseas, and Katie’s father, Charlie, played by Reynor, does his own research in a desperate attempt to figure out what’s wrong with his daughter.
At the end of the movie, the detective comes to New Mexico and helps Charlie manipulate the demon into leaping out of Katie and into Charlie. He saves his daughter, but dooms himself. That’s where the movie ended originally, apparently. The version that made it into theaters has an additional scene where the Magician, who’s been jailed for kidnapping Katie, gets a visit from a mummified Charlie. Again with the detective’s help, the demon makes another leap between bodies—this time, freeing Charlie and taking over the Magician’s soul instead.
That was a reshoot, Reynor told the Hollywood Reporter. “We came back and picked it up, which was cool because it was the one day where I actually got to be the Mummy. It’s fun to get into the makeup and get to be part of that legacy,” Reynor said, name-checking the Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee versions of the character. Even beyond becoming part of horror history, though, he understood the reason for the change.
“You make these decisions because you want to give the audience what they want, and I understand that. Is it a better movie, objectively speaking? I don’t know. I did like Lee’s original ending,” Reynor admitted. “But I also understand that if I went to see that movie with my teenage kids and they were bummed out because it was so fucking bleak at the end, maybe I’d be [more in favor of the new ending]. So I get it both ways. I see the merits of both for different reasons.” The new ending is cathartic; after all, the Magician was the one who singled Katie out for years of unimaginable torture, not to mention inflicting torment on her family. She deserves some payback other than prison time. But it also left another lingering question: what happens next?
The Magician was the person in charge of handing down the knowledge of how to contain the demon to the next generation. Now that she’s become its current vessel, who will be keeping an eye out? Presumably, that burden now transfers to her only surviving child—a girl around Katie’s age—who’ll have to select a new innocent victim someday and perform the same ritual once her mother’s body starts to break down. We probably won’t get another Lee Cronin’s The Mummy to explore that further, but thinking about it too much does make the new ending a little less suffused with the gleeful spirit of revenge. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Lee #Cronins #Mummy #Originally #BleakerJack Reynor,Lee Cronin’s The Mummy")
‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’ Originally Had a Much Bleaker Ending
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy wasn’t our favorite mummy movie, but it did have some recommendable qualities, including its high levels of gruesome gore. We also approved of the ending, which offered a satisfying twist to the agony that came before. And while The Mummy‘s test screenings were targeted by some since-debunked negative rumors (look, James Wan just wanted more snacks, that’s all!), apparently those same early showings helped writer-director Cronin figure out that all-important final note for his film.
Star Jack Reynor talked about the original ending and the changes that were made, and we’ll add one of these in case you haven’t yet seen Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.
![‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’ Originally Had a Much Bleaker Ending
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy wasn’t our favorite mummy movie, but it did have some recommendable qualities, including its high levels of gruesome gore. We also approved of the ending, which offered a satisfying twist to the agony that came before. And while The Mummy‘s test screenings were targeted by some since-debunked negative rumors (look, James Wan just wanted more snacks, that’s all!), apparently those same early showings helped writer-director Cronin figure out that all-important final note for his film. Star Jack Reynor talked about the original ending and the changes that were made, and we’ll add one of these in case you haven’t yet seen Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. At the end of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, the characters have all realized that young Katie is possessed by a ferocious demon. She was kidnapped years earlier by her friend’s mother, a character the film calls “the Magician,” for the sole purpose of becoming the next containment vessel for this demon over a period of years.
The sarcophagus and wrappings covered in ancient writing she’s entombed in are meant to trap the demon as part of an obligation upheld by the Magician’s family for generations upon generations. The demon starts to escape when the sarcophagus is moved out of necessity from the Magician’s farm. Instead of relocating safely, the sarcophagus breaks open in a plane crash, and Katie—still alive, albeit mummified and barely clinging to her human soul—is sent from Egypt to New Mexico to reunite with her surprised and thankful mother, father, and two siblings.
The bulk of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy follows the creature formerly known as Katie causing horrifying, escalating chaos, while an Egyptian detective pokes into the case overseas, and Katie’s father, Charlie, played by Reynor, does his own research in a desperate attempt to figure out what’s wrong with his daughter.
At the end of the movie, the detective comes to New Mexico and helps Charlie manipulate the demon into leaping out of Katie and into Charlie. He saves his daughter, but dooms himself. That’s where the movie ended originally, apparently. The version that made it into theaters has an additional scene where the Magician, who’s been jailed for kidnapping Katie, gets a visit from a mummified Charlie. Again with the detective’s help, the demon makes another leap between bodies—this time, freeing Charlie and taking over the Magician’s soul instead.
That was a reshoot, Reynor told the Hollywood Reporter. “We came back and picked it up, which was cool because it was the one day where I actually got to be the Mummy. It’s fun to get into the makeup and get to be part of that legacy,” Reynor said, name-checking the Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee versions of the character. Even beyond becoming part of horror history, though, he understood the reason for the change.
“You make these decisions because you want to give the audience what they want, and I understand that. Is it a better movie, objectively speaking? I don’t know. I did like Lee’s original ending,” Reynor admitted. “But I also understand that if I went to see that movie with my teenage kids and they were bummed out because it was so fucking bleak at the end, maybe I’d be [more in favor of the new ending]. So I get it both ways. I see the merits of both for different reasons.” The new ending is cathartic; after all, the Magician was the one who singled Katie out for years of unimaginable torture, not to mention inflicting torment on her family. She deserves some payback other than prison time. But it also left another lingering question: what happens next?
The Magician was the person in charge of handing down the knowledge of how to contain the demon to the next generation. Now that she’s become its current vessel, who will be keeping an eye out? Presumably, that burden now transfers to her only surviving child—a girl around Katie’s age—who’ll have to select a new innocent victim someday and perform the same ritual once her mother’s body starts to break down. We probably won’t get another Lee Cronin’s The Mummy to explore that further, but thinking about it too much does make the new ending a little less suffused with the gleeful spirit of revenge. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Lee #Cronins #Mummy #Originally #BleakerJack Reynor,Lee Cronin’s The Mummy](https://gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2025/09/io9-2025-spoiler.png "‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’ Originally Had a Much Bleaker Ending
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy wasn’t our favorite mummy movie, but it did have some recommendable qualities, including its high levels of gruesome gore. We also approved of the ending, which offered a satisfying twist to the agony that came before. And while The Mummy‘s test screenings were targeted by some since-debunked negative rumors (look, James Wan just wanted more snacks, that’s all!), apparently those same early showings helped writer-director Cronin figure out that all-important final note for his film. Star Jack Reynor talked about the original ending and the changes that were made, and we’ll add one of these in case you haven’t yet seen Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. At the end of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, the characters have all realized that young Katie is possessed by a ferocious demon. She was kidnapped years earlier by her friend’s mother, a character the film calls “the Magician,” for the sole purpose of becoming the next containment vessel for this demon over a period of years.
The sarcophagus and wrappings covered in ancient writing she’s entombed in are meant to trap the demon as part of an obligation upheld by the Magician’s family for generations upon generations. The demon starts to escape when the sarcophagus is moved out of necessity from the Magician’s farm. Instead of relocating safely, the sarcophagus breaks open in a plane crash, and Katie—still alive, albeit mummified and barely clinging to her human soul—is sent from Egypt to New Mexico to reunite with her surprised and thankful mother, father, and two siblings.
The bulk of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy follows the creature formerly known as Katie causing horrifying, escalating chaos, while an Egyptian detective pokes into the case overseas, and Katie’s father, Charlie, played by Reynor, does his own research in a desperate attempt to figure out what’s wrong with his daughter.
At the end of the movie, the detective comes to New Mexico and helps Charlie manipulate the demon into leaping out of Katie and into Charlie. He saves his daughter, but dooms himself. That’s where the movie ended originally, apparently. The version that made it into theaters has an additional scene where the Magician, who’s been jailed for kidnapping Katie, gets a visit from a mummified Charlie. Again with the detective’s help, the demon makes another leap between bodies—this time, freeing Charlie and taking over the Magician’s soul instead.
That was a reshoot, Reynor told the Hollywood Reporter. “We came back and picked it up, which was cool because it was the one day where I actually got to be the Mummy. It’s fun to get into the makeup and get to be part of that legacy,” Reynor said, name-checking the Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee versions of the character. Even beyond becoming part of horror history, though, he understood the reason for the change.
“You make these decisions because you want to give the audience what they want, and I understand that. Is it a better movie, objectively speaking? I don’t know. I did like Lee’s original ending,” Reynor admitted. “But I also understand that if I went to see that movie with my teenage kids and they were bummed out because it was so fucking bleak at the end, maybe I’d be [more in favor of the new ending]. So I get it both ways. I see the merits of both for different reasons.” The new ending is cathartic; after all, the Magician was the one who singled Katie out for years of unimaginable torture, not to mention inflicting torment on her family. She deserves some payback other than prison time. But it also left another lingering question: what happens next?
The Magician was the person in charge of handing down the knowledge of how to contain the demon to the next generation. Now that she’s become its current vessel, who will be keeping an eye out? Presumably, that burden now transfers to her only surviving child—a girl around Katie’s age—who’ll have to select a new innocent victim someday and perform the same ritual once her mother’s body starts to break down. We probably won’t get another Lee Cronin’s The Mummy to explore that further, but thinking about it too much does make the new ending a little less suffused with the gleeful spirit of revenge. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Lee #Cronins #Mummy #Originally #BleakerJack Reynor,Lee Cronin’s The Mummy")
At the end of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, the characters have all realized that young Katie is possessed by a ferocious demon. She was kidnapped years earlier by her friend’s mother, a character the film calls “the Magician,” for the sole purpose of becoming the next containment vessel for this demon over a period of years.
The sarcophagus and wrappings covered in ancient writing she’s entombed in are meant to trap the demon as part of an obligation upheld by the Magician’s family for generations upon generations.
The demon starts to escape when the sarcophagus is moved out of necessity from the Magician’s farm. Instead of relocating safely, the sarcophagus breaks open in a plane crash, and Katie—still alive, albeit mummified and barely clinging to her human soul—is sent from Egypt to New Mexico to reunite with her surprised and thankful mother, father, and two siblings.
The bulk of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy follows the creature formerly known as Katie causing horrifying, escalating chaos, while an Egyptian detective pokes into the case overseas, and Katie’s father, Charlie, played by Reynor, does his own research in a desperate attempt to figure out what’s wrong with his daughter.
At the end of the movie, the detective comes to New Mexico and helps Charlie manipulate the demon into leaping out of Katie and into Charlie. He saves his daughter, but dooms himself.
That’s where the movie ended originally, apparently. The version that made it into theaters has an additional scene where the Magician, who’s been jailed for kidnapping Katie, gets a visit from a mummified Charlie. Again with the detective’s help, the demon makes another leap between bodies—this time, freeing Charlie and taking over the Magician’s soul instead.
That was a reshoot, Reynor told the Hollywood Reporter.
“We came back and picked it up, which was cool because it was the one day where I actually got to be the Mummy. It’s fun to get into the makeup and get to be part of that legacy,” Reynor said, name-checking the Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee versions of the character.
Even beyond becoming part of horror history, though, he understood the reason for the change.
“You make these decisions because you want to give the audience what they want, and I understand that. Is it a better movie, objectively speaking? I don’t know. I did like Lee’s original ending,” Reynor admitted. “But I also understand that if I went to see that movie with my teenage kids and they were bummed out because it was so fucking bleak at the end, maybe I’d be [more in favor of the new ending]. So I get it both ways. I see the merits of both for different reasons.”
The new ending is cathartic; after all, the Magician was the one who singled Katie out for years of unimaginable torture, not to mention inflicting torment on her family. She deserves some payback other than prison time. But it also left another lingering question: what happens next?
The Magician was the person in charge of handing down the knowledge of how to contain the demon to the next generation. Now that she’s become its current vessel, who will be keeping an eye out? Presumably, that burden now transfers to her only surviving child—a girl around Katie’s age—who’ll have to select a new innocent victim someday and perform the same ritual once her mother’s body starts to break down.
We probably won’t get another Lee Cronin’s The Mummy to explore that further, but thinking about it too much does make the new ending a little less suffused with the gleeful spirit of revenge.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
#Lee #Cronins #Mummy #Originally #BleakerJack Reynor,Lee Cronin’s The Mummy
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy wasn’t our favorite mummy movie, but it did have some recommendable qualities, including its high levels of gruesome gore. We also approved of the ending, which offered a satisfying twist to the agony that came before. And while The Mummy‘s test screenings were targeted by some since-debunked negative rumors (look, James Wan just wanted more snacks, that’s all!), apparently those same early showings helped writer-director Cronin figure out that all-important final note for his film.
Star Jack Reynor talked about the original ending and the changes that were made, and we’ll add one of these in case you haven’t yet seen Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.
At the end of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, the characters have all realized that young Katie is possessed by a ferocious demon. She was kidnapped years earlier by her friend’s mother, a character the film calls “the Magician,” for the sole purpose of becoming the next containment vessel for this demon over a period of years.
The sarcophagus and wrappings covered in ancient writing she’s entombed in are meant to trap the demon as part of an obligation upheld by the Magician’s family for generations upon generations.
The demon starts to escape when the sarcophagus is moved out of necessity from the Magician’s farm. Instead of relocating safely, the sarcophagus breaks open in a plane crash, and Katie—still alive, albeit mummified and barely clinging to her human soul—is sent from Egypt to New Mexico to reunite with her surprised and thankful mother, father, and two siblings.
The bulk of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy follows the creature formerly known as Katie causing horrifying, escalating chaos, while an Egyptian detective pokes into the case overseas, and Katie’s father, Charlie, played by Reynor, does his own research in a desperate attempt to figure out what’s wrong with his daughter.
At the end of the movie, the detective comes to New Mexico and helps Charlie manipulate the demon into leaping out of Katie and into Charlie. He saves his daughter, but dooms himself.
That’s where the movie ended originally, apparently. The version that made it into theaters has an additional scene where the Magician, who’s been jailed for kidnapping Katie, gets a visit from a mummified Charlie. Again with the detective’s help, the demon makes another leap between bodies—this time, freeing Charlie and taking over the Magician’s soul instead.
That was a reshoot, Reynor told the Hollywood Reporter.
“We came back and picked it up, which was cool because it was the one day where I actually got to be the Mummy. It’s fun to get into the makeup and get to be part of that legacy,” Reynor said, name-checking the Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee versions of the character.
Even beyond becoming part of horror history, though, he understood the reason for the change.
“You make these decisions because you want to give the audience what they want, and I understand that. Is it a better movie, objectively speaking? I don’t know. I did like Lee’s original ending,” Reynor admitted. “But I also understand that if I went to see that movie with my teenage kids and they were bummed out because it was so fucking bleak at the end, maybe I’d be [more in favor of the new ending]. So I get it both ways. I see the merits of both for different reasons.”
The new ending is cathartic; after all, the Magician was the one who singled Katie out for years of unimaginable torture, not to mention inflicting torment on her family. She deserves some payback other than prison time. But it also left another lingering question: what happens next?
The Magician was the person in charge of handing down the knowledge of how to contain the demon to the next generation. Now that she’s become its current vessel, who will be keeping an eye out? Presumably, that burden now transfers to her only surviving child—a girl around Katie’s age—who’ll have to select a new innocent victim someday and perform the same ritual once her mother’s body starts to break down.
We probably won’t get another Lee Cronin’s The Mummy to explore that further, but thinking about it too much does make the new ending a little less suffused with the gleeful spirit of revenge.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
![This former notorious red-light district is now one of the world’s top AI hubs | TechCrunch
What every U.K. AI startup wants to know these days is, how can I get office space in King’s Cross?
The area is so hot that a VC firm allegedly recently won a deal by promising a founder office space in the neighborhood. “We stop at nothing to win deals [for] and to support” founders, “including helping them source office space when needed,” the firm told me when asked about the rumor, declining to confirm or deny any details.
The neighborhood’s popularity began back in 2016 when DeepMind — then newly acquired by Google — moved in. Soon after, a flood of AI startups followed, wanting to be around the Google DeepMind magic. Today, they hope to take advantage of the cluster of AI talent there.
This has transformed King’s Cross into one of the world’s top AI hubs, rivaled only by San Francisco and Beijing. Around London, it’s known by the sobriquet “Knowledge Quarter,” as it’s home to names like OpenAI, Meta, Isomorphic Labs, Cusp AI, Wayne, Recursive, and, a little farther down the road, Synthesia and Anthropic. The European Technology Network (ETN) just moved into a glossy new office nearby, while University College London sits around the corner.
Mixed in with the new developments are trendy food spots like Hoppers and BAO. Hop a train from King’s Cross, and founders can be in Cambridge in 45 minutes to source talent or can be in Paris in two hours to strike a deal.
Who would have guessed that a little more than 20 years ago, this was one of the seediest areas in London?
“In the ’80s, crack and heroin made the area a major narcotics market,” Hussein Kanji, an investor at Hoxton Ventures, said, recalling syringes in tree trunks and gangs patrolling the streets. “In 1982, the local church was occupied by the English Collective of Prostitutes for 12 straight days.” Then, in the early 2000s, a real estate developer had a dream and, well, “now it is the AI hotbed of the United Kingdom,” Kanji said. “What a change.” Around 18 months ago, his portfolio company BioCorteX moved from the neighborhood Holborn to the Jellicoe building in King’s Cross, hoping to be near the action. “Lots going on in London right now,” Nik Sharma, co-founder of BioCorteX, told me. “Lots of hyperscalers moving in.” That includes, reportedly, Jeff Bezos’ AI company Prometheus, which is also said to be in talks to move into the Jellicoe.
There are around 3,600 AI startups in London, which, together, have raised around .1 billion out of the .8 billion raised in the city since late July, according to Dealroom. Since the start of June, AI-related startups have leased more than 1 million square feet of office space in London, according to the real estate firm Knight Frank. With that, prime rents in King’s Cross have risen 18% over the past three years, Chris Dunn, a commercial insight associate at the firm, told me. That percentage represents only the largest leases encompassing at least 10,000 square feet, like the ones OpenAI and Prometheus are signing. The shorter deals go for even more, he said, and now the vacancy rate for conventional office space is just 0.9%. “Demand has outstripped supply,” he continued.
Today, one of the big topics of the area is sovereignty. It was a wake-up call for many when Anthropic shut off access to Mythos and Fable this summer, leaving some in the ecosystem to conclude: “We’d better look after ourselves,” Saul Klein, co-founder of the VC firm Phoenix Court, told me.
Phoenix Court is located in the King’s Cross area and has three portfolio companies in the vicinity, including Olix (which just announced a .3 billion valuation), Early Health and CoMind. Robin Klein, co-founder of the firm, said the shutdown of Fable and Mythos access was a “small but sharp reminder that Europe can’t simply rent its AI capabilities and capacity; it needs to build and hold some of its own.” King’s Cross, he said, is where much of this building is actually happening.
“The bigger question,” he continued, “is whether the U.K. builds the infrastructure, compute, energy, capital, to make this self-reliance durable, rather than just hosting outposts of U.S. labs.”
Image Credits:Phoenix Court
Top founders want to stay
Simon Kohl, founder of Latent Labs, has offices in King’s Cross and San Francisco. The London office, at the moment, is growing faster, and he’s more bullish than ever on the ecosystem, he said. “The mood right now feels less like London trying to catch up and more like London becoming one of the default places to start a serious AI company,” he said. Look around and you are likely to see Wayve testing its autonomous cars. Founded in 2017 by co-founder Alex Kendall, the unicorn is one of London’s biggest success stories.
“Ten years ago, building a frontier AI company from London felt like an unusual choice,” Kendall told me. “Now it feels like an obvious one.” Wayve moved into King’s Cross in 2018 looking for a space that could double as a garage — “a rare combination in Central London,” Kendall said. He has watched the ecosystem mature around him — and it’s now evident that a startup can stay in London, raise serious capital, hire world-class AI talent, and remain globally competitive, he said. Down the street from Anthropic’s new 158,000-square-foot office is the AI agent builder Sierra and the AI video platform Synthesia.
Laura Gonzalez Florez, Synthesia’s chief of staff and head of people, says the company moved into its glossy new office building a year ago to accommodate its growing team. They were drawn to the area for the same reason as everyone else: “It’s very close to the airport … very close to where a lot of investors are,” she said.
Image Credits:Synthesia
Around two-thirds of Synthesia’s engineers are remote, Gonzalez Florez said, letting the company tap into an affordable, international, and diverse talent pool and helping it scale faster. “From London, we can hire and work, without any problem, people from anywhere, from Slovenia to Portugal,” she said.
Unsurprisingly, London’s AI boom is also causing a talent war.U.K. AI job postings have skyrocketed in the past few years, per data from PwC. When Anthropic announced it moved into town earlier this year, it listed, for example, a salary range of £260,000 to £630,000 for a machine learning research engineer when the average salary in London for the same role is around £102,000. Some founders in the U.K., like those in Silicon Valley, are being forced to raise more and bigger rounds to keep up.
“The real test is whether more globally significant AI companies are founded, funded, and scaled from the U.K., while continuing to attract the world’s best talent to build them here,” Zain Ali, founder of the King’s Cross-based AI legal firm Centuro, told me. “If that continues to happen, King’s Cross won’t just be an AI hub. It’ll become one of the U.K.’s most important strategic assets.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Thisformernotorious #redlight #districtis #nowone #worlds #top #hubs #TechCrunchUK](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/DM9A2852.jpg?w=680 "This former notorious red-light district is now one of the world’s top AI hubs | TechCrunch
What every U.K. AI startup wants to know these days is, how can I get office space in King’s Cross?
The area is so hot that a VC firm allegedly recently won a deal by promising a founder office space in the neighborhood. “We stop at nothing to win deals [for] and to support” founders, “including helping them source office space when needed,” the firm told me when asked about the rumor, declining to confirm or deny any details.
The neighborhood’s popularity began back in 2016 when DeepMind — then newly acquired by Google — moved in. Soon after, a flood of AI startups followed, wanting to be around the Google DeepMind magic. Today, they hope to take advantage of the cluster of AI talent there.
This has transformed King’s Cross into one of the world’s top AI hubs, rivaled only by San Francisco and Beijing. Around London, it’s known by the sobriquet “Knowledge Quarter,” as it’s home to names like OpenAI, Meta, Isomorphic Labs, Cusp AI, Wayne, Recursive, and, a little farther down the road, Synthesia and Anthropic. The European Technology Network (ETN) just moved into a glossy new office nearby, while University College London sits around the corner.
Mixed in with the new developments are trendy food spots like Hoppers and BAO. Hop a train from King’s Cross, and founders can be in Cambridge in 45 minutes to source talent or can be in Paris in two hours to strike a deal.
Who would have guessed that a little more than 20 years ago, this was one of the seediest areas in London?
“In the ’80s, crack and heroin made the area a major narcotics market,” Hussein Kanji, an investor at Hoxton Ventures, said, recalling syringes in tree trunks and gangs patrolling the streets. “In 1982, the local church was occupied by the English Collective of Prostitutes for 12 straight days.” Then, in the early 2000s, a real estate developer had a dream and, well, “now it is the AI hotbed of the United Kingdom,” Kanji said. “What a change.” Around 18 months ago, his portfolio company BioCorteX moved from the neighborhood Holborn to the Jellicoe building in King’s Cross, hoping to be near the action. “Lots going on in London right now,” Nik Sharma, co-founder of BioCorteX, told me. “Lots of hyperscalers moving in.” That includes, reportedly, Jeff Bezos’ AI company Prometheus, which is also said to be in talks to move into the Jellicoe.
There are around 3,600 AI startups in London, which, together, have raised around .1 billion out of the .8 billion raised in the city since late July, according to Dealroom. Since the start of June, AI-related startups have leased more than 1 million square feet of office space in London, according to the real estate firm Knight Frank. With that, prime rents in King’s Cross have risen 18% over the past three years, Chris Dunn, a commercial insight associate at the firm, told me. That percentage represents only the largest leases encompassing at least 10,000 square feet, like the ones OpenAI and Prometheus are signing. The shorter deals go for even more, he said, and now the vacancy rate for conventional office space is just 0.9%. “Demand has outstripped supply,” he continued.
Today, one of the big topics of the area is sovereignty. It was a wake-up call for many when Anthropic shut off access to Mythos and Fable this summer, leaving some in the ecosystem to conclude: “We’d better look after ourselves,” Saul Klein, co-founder of the VC firm Phoenix Court, told me.
Phoenix Court is located in the King’s Cross area and has three portfolio companies in the vicinity, including Olix (which just announced a .3 billion valuation), Early Health and CoMind. Robin Klein, co-founder of the firm, said the shutdown of Fable and Mythos access was a “small but sharp reminder that Europe can’t simply rent its AI capabilities and capacity; it needs to build and hold some of its own.” King’s Cross, he said, is where much of this building is actually happening.
“The bigger question,” he continued, “is whether the U.K. builds the infrastructure, compute, energy, capital, to make this self-reliance durable, rather than just hosting outposts of U.S. labs.”
Image Credits:Phoenix Court
Top founders want to stay
Simon Kohl, founder of Latent Labs, has offices in King’s Cross and San Francisco. The London office, at the moment, is growing faster, and he’s more bullish than ever on the ecosystem, he said. “The mood right now feels less like London trying to catch up and more like London becoming one of the default places to start a serious AI company,” he said. Look around and you are likely to see Wayve testing its autonomous cars. Founded in 2017 by co-founder Alex Kendall, the unicorn is one of London’s biggest success stories.
“Ten years ago, building a frontier AI company from London felt like an unusual choice,” Kendall told me. “Now it feels like an obvious one.” Wayve moved into King’s Cross in 2018 looking for a space that could double as a garage — “a rare combination in Central London,” Kendall said. He has watched the ecosystem mature around him — and it’s now evident that a startup can stay in London, raise serious capital, hire world-class AI talent, and remain globally competitive, he said. Down the street from Anthropic’s new 158,000-square-foot office is the AI agent builder Sierra and the AI video platform Synthesia.
Laura Gonzalez Florez, Synthesia’s chief of staff and head of people, says the company moved into its glossy new office building a year ago to accommodate its growing team. They were drawn to the area for the same reason as everyone else: “It’s very close to the airport … very close to where a lot of investors are,” she said.
Image Credits:Synthesia
Around two-thirds of Synthesia’s engineers are remote, Gonzalez Florez said, letting the company tap into an affordable, international, and diverse talent pool and helping it scale faster. “From London, we can hire and work, without any problem, people from anywhere, from Slovenia to Portugal,” she said.
Unsurprisingly, London’s AI boom is also causing a talent war.U.K. AI job postings have skyrocketed in the past few years, per data from PwC. When Anthropic announced it moved into town earlier this year, it listed, for example, a salary range of £260,000 to £630,000 for a machine learning research engineer when the average salary in London for the same role is around £102,000. Some founders in the U.K., like those in Silicon Valley, are being forced to raise more and bigger rounds to keep up.
“The real test is whether more globally significant AI companies are founded, funded, and scaled from the U.K., while continuing to attract the world’s best talent to build them here,” Zain Ali, founder of the King’s Cross-based AI legal firm Centuro, told me. “If that continues to happen, King’s Cross won’t just be an AI hub. It’ll become one of the U.K.’s most important strategic assets.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Thisformernotorious #redlight #districtis #nowone #worlds #top #hubs #TechCrunchUK")
![This former notorious red-light district is now one of the world’s top AI hubs | TechCrunch
What every U.K. AI startup wants to know these days is, how can I get office space in King’s Cross?
The area is so hot that a VC firm allegedly recently won a deal by promising a founder office space in the neighborhood. “We stop at nothing to win deals [for] and to support” founders, “including helping them source office space when needed,” the firm told me when asked about the rumor, declining to confirm or deny any details.
The neighborhood’s popularity began back in 2016 when DeepMind — then newly acquired by Google — moved in. Soon after, a flood of AI startups followed, wanting to be around the Google DeepMind magic. Today, they hope to take advantage of the cluster of AI talent there.
This has transformed King’s Cross into one of the world’s top AI hubs, rivaled only by San Francisco and Beijing. Around London, it’s known by the sobriquet “Knowledge Quarter,” as it’s home to names like OpenAI, Meta, Isomorphic Labs, Cusp AI, Wayne, Recursive, and, a little farther down the road, Synthesia and Anthropic. The European Technology Network (ETN) just moved into a glossy new office nearby, while University College London sits around the corner.
Mixed in with the new developments are trendy food spots like Hoppers and BAO. Hop a train from King’s Cross, and founders can be in Cambridge in 45 minutes to source talent or can be in Paris in two hours to strike a deal.
Who would have guessed that a little more than 20 years ago, this was one of the seediest areas in London?
“In the ’80s, crack and heroin made the area a major narcotics market,” Hussein Kanji, an investor at Hoxton Ventures, said, recalling syringes in tree trunks and gangs patrolling the streets. “In 1982, the local church was occupied by the English Collective of Prostitutes for 12 straight days.” Then, in the early 2000s, a real estate developer had a dream and, well, “now it is the AI hotbed of the United Kingdom,” Kanji said. “What a change.” Around 18 months ago, his portfolio company BioCorteX moved from the neighborhood Holborn to the Jellicoe building in King’s Cross, hoping to be near the action. “Lots going on in London right now,” Nik Sharma, co-founder of BioCorteX, told me. “Lots of hyperscalers moving in.” That includes, reportedly, Jeff Bezos’ AI company Prometheus, which is also said to be in talks to move into the Jellicoe.
There are around 3,600 AI startups in London, which, together, have raised around .1 billion out of the .8 billion raised in the city since late July, according to Dealroom. Since the start of June, AI-related startups have leased more than 1 million square feet of office space in London, according to the real estate firm Knight Frank. With that, prime rents in King’s Cross have risen 18% over the past three years, Chris Dunn, a commercial insight associate at the firm, told me. That percentage represents only the largest leases encompassing at least 10,000 square feet, like the ones OpenAI and Prometheus are signing. The shorter deals go for even more, he said, and now the vacancy rate for conventional office space is just 0.9%. “Demand has outstripped supply,” he continued.
Today, one of the big topics of the area is sovereignty. It was a wake-up call for many when Anthropic shut off access to Mythos and Fable this summer, leaving some in the ecosystem to conclude: “We’d better look after ourselves,” Saul Klein, co-founder of the VC firm Phoenix Court, told me.
Phoenix Court is located in the King’s Cross area and has three portfolio companies in the vicinity, including Olix (which just announced a .3 billion valuation), Early Health and CoMind. Robin Klein, co-founder of the firm, said the shutdown of Fable and Mythos access was a “small but sharp reminder that Europe can’t simply rent its AI capabilities and capacity; it needs to build and hold some of its own.” King’s Cross, he said, is where much of this building is actually happening.
“The bigger question,” he continued, “is whether the U.K. builds the infrastructure, compute, energy, capital, to make this self-reliance durable, rather than just hosting outposts of U.S. labs.”
Image Credits:Phoenix Court
Top founders want to stay
Simon Kohl, founder of Latent Labs, has offices in King’s Cross and San Francisco. The London office, at the moment, is growing faster, and he’s more bullish than ever on the ecosystem, he said. “The mood right now feels less like London trying to catch up and more like London becoming one of the default places to start a serious AI company,” he said. Look around and you are likely to see Wayve testing its autonomous cars. Founded in 2017 by co-founder Alex Kendall, the unicorn is one of London’s biggest success stories.
“Ten years ago, building a frontier AI company from London felt like an unusual choice,” Kendall told me. “Now it feels like an obvious one.” Wayve moved into King’s Cross in 2018 looking for a space that could double as a garage — “a rare combination in Central London,” Kendall said. He has watched the ecosystem mature around him — and it’s now evident that a startup can stay in London, raise serious capital, hire world-class AI talent, and remain globally competitive, he said. Down the street from Anthropic’s new 158,000-square-foot office is the AI agent builder Sierra and the AI video platform Synthesia.
Laura Gonzalez Florez, Synthesia’s chief of staff and head of people, says the company moved into its glossy new office building a year ago to accommodate its growing team. They were drawn to the area for the same reason as everyone else: “It’s very close to the airport … very close to where a lot of investors are,” she said.
Image Credits:Synthesia
Around two-thirds of Synthesia’s engineers are remote, Gonzalez Florez said, letting the company tap into an affordable, international, and diverse talent pool and helping it scale faster. “From London, we can hire and work, without any problem, people from anywhere, from Slovenia to Portugal,” she said.
Unsurprisingly, London’s AI boom is also causing a talent war.U.K. AI job postings have skyrocketed in the past few years, per data from PwC. When Anthropic announced it moved into town earlier this year, it listed, for example, a salary range of £260,000 to £630,000 for a machine learning research engineer when the average salary in London for the same role is around £102,000. Some founders in the U.K., like those in Silicon Valley, are being forced to raise more and bigger rounds to keep up.
“The real test is whether more globally significant AI companies are founded, funded, and scaled from the U.K., while continuing to attract the world’s best talent to build them here,” Zain Ali, founder of the King’s Cross-based AI legal firm Centuro, told me. “If that continues to happen, King’s Cross won’t just be an AI hub. It’ll become one of the U.K.’s most important strategic assets.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Thisformernotorious #redlight #districtis #nowone #worlds #top #hubs #TechCrunchUK](https://i0.wp.com/techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/DM9A2852.jpg?w=680&ssl=1 "This former notorious red-light district is now one of the world’s top AI hubs | TechCrunch
What every U.K. AI startup wants to know these days is, how can I get office space in King’s Cross?
The area is so hot that a VC firm allegedly recently won a deal by promising a founder office space in the neighborhood. “We stop at nothing to win deals [for] and to support” founders, “including helping them source office space when needed,” the firm told me when asked about the rumor, declining to confirm or deny any details.
The neighborhood’s popularity began back in 2016 when DeepMind — then newly acquired by Google — moved in. Soon after, a flood of AI startups followed, wanting to be around the Google DeepMind magic. Today, they hope to take advantage of the cluster of AI talent there.
This has transformed King’s Cross into one of the world’s top AI hubs, rivaled only by San Francisco and Beijing. Around London, it’s known by the sobriquet “Knowledge Quarter,” as it’s home to names like OpenAI, Meta, Isomorphic Labs, Cusp AI, Wayne, Recursive, and, a little farther down the road, Synthesia and Anthropic. The European Technology Network (ETN) just moved into a glossy new office nearby, while University College London sits around the corner.
Mixed in with the new developments are trendy food spots like Hoppers and BAO. Hop a train from King’s Cross, and founders can be in Cambridge in 45 minutes to source talent or can be in Paris in two hours to strike a deal.
Who would have guessed that a little more than 20 years ago, this was one of the seediest areas in London?
“In the ’80s, crack and heroin made the area a major narcotics market,” Hussein Kanji, an investor at Hoxton Ventures, said, recalling syringes in tree trunks and gangs patrolling the streets. “In 1982, the local church was occupied by the English Collective of Prostitutes for 12 straight days.” Then, in the early 2000s, a real estate developer had a dream and, well, “now it is the AI hotbed of the United Kingdom,” Kanji said. “What a change.” Around 18 months ago, his portfolio company BioCorteX moved from the neighborhood Holborn to the Jellicoe building in King’s Cross, hoping to be near the action. “Lots going on in London right now,” Nik Sharma, co-founder of BioCorteX, told me. “Lots of hyperscalers moving in.” That includes, reportedly, Jeff Bezos’ AI company Prometheus, which is also said to be in talks to move into the Jellicoe.
There are around 3,600 AI startups in London, which, together, have raised around .1 billion out of the .8 billion raised in the city since late July, according to Dealroom. Since the start of June, AI-related startups have leased more than 1 million square feet of office space in London, according to the real estate firm Knight Frank. With that, prime rents in King’s Cross have risen 18% over the past three years, Chris Dunn, a commercial insight associate at the firm, told me. That percentage represents only the largest leases encompassing at least 10,000 square feet, like the ones OpenAI and Prometheus are signing. The shorter deals go for even more, he said, and now the vacancy rate for conventional office space is just 0.9%. “Demand has outstripped supply,” he continued.
Today, one of the big topics of the area is sovereignty. It was a wake-up call for many when Anthropic shut off access to Mythos and Fable this summer, leaving some in the ecosystem to conclude: “We’d better look after ourselves,” Saul Klein, co-founder of the VC firm Phoenix Court, told me.
Phoenix Court is located in the King’s Cross area and has three portfolio companies in the vicinity, including Olix (which just announced a .3 billion valuation), Early Health and CoMind. Robin Klein, co-founder of the firm, said the shutdown of Fable and Mythos access was a “small but sharp reminder that Europe can’t simply rent its AI capabilities and capacity; it needs to build and hold some of its own.” King’s Cross, he said, is where much of this building is actually happening.
“The bigger question,” he continued, “is whether the U.K. builds the infrastructure, compute, energy, capital, to make this self-reliance durable, rather than just hosting outposts of U.S. labs.”
Image Credits:Phoenix Court
Top founders want to stay
Simon Kohl, founder of Latent Labs, has offices in King’s Cross and San Francisco. The London office, at the moment, is growing faster, and he’s more bullish than ever on the ecosystem, he said. “The mood right now feels less like London trying to catch up and more like London becoming one of the default places to start a serious AI company,” he said. Look around and you are likely to see Wayve testing its autonomous cars. Founded in 2017 by co-founder Alex Kendall, the unicorn is one of London’s biggest success stories.
“Ten years ago, building a frontier AI company from London felt like an unusual choice,” Kendall told me. “Now it feels like an obvious one.” Wayve moved into King’s Cross in 2018 looking for a space that could double as a garage — “a rare combination in Central London,” Kendall said. He has watched the ecosystem mature around him — and it’s now evident that a startup can stay in London, raise serious capital, hire world-class AI talent, and remain globally competitive, he said. Down the street from Anthropic’s new 158,000-square-foot office is the AI agent builder Sierra and the AI video platform Synthesia.
Laura Gonzalez Florez, Synthesia’s chief of staff and head of people, says the company moved into its glossy new office building a year ago to accommodate its growing team. They were drawn to the area for the same reason as everyone else: “It’s very close to the airport … very close to where a lot of investors are,” she said.
Image Credits:Synthesia
Around two-thirds of Synthesia’s engineers are remote, Gonzalez Florez said, letting the company tap into an affordable, international, and diverse talent pool and helping it scale faster. “From London, we can hire and work, without any problem, people from anywhere, from Slovenia to Portugal,” she said.
Unsurprisingly, London’s AI boom is also causing a talent war.U.K. AI job postings have skyrocketed in the past few years, per data from PwC. When Anthropic announced it moved into town earlier this year, it listed, for example, a salary range of £260,000 to £630,000 for a machine learning research engineer when the average salary in London for the same role is around £102,000. Some founders in the U.K., like those in Silicon Valley, are being forced to raise more and bigger rounds to keep up.
“The real test is whether more globally significant AI companies are founded, funded, and scaled from the U.K., while continuing to attract the world’s best talent to build them here,” Zain Ali, founder of the King’s Cross-based AI legal firm Centuro, told me. “If that continues to happen, King’s Cross won’t just be an AI hub. It’ll become one of the U.K.’s most important strategic assets.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Thisformernotorious #redlight #districtis #nowone #worlds #top #hubs #TechCrunchUK")
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