Credit: The Mummy
Brendan Fraser is currently on cloud nine thanks to his sudden resurgence in the limelight. That’s all due to Darren Aronofsky’s adaptation of The Whale, which is about a 600-pound reclusive English teacher who has decided to eat himself to death. That’s due to the tragic loss of his gay lover. However, his battle with severe obesity gives him a chance to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for redemption. The actor is making his media rounds to promote the film and the topic of The Mummy came up during his interview with Variety.
As many of you know, the actor played Rick O’Connell in the rebooted 90’s blockbuster for three films. The last time Fraser suited up as Rick O’Connell was in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which wasn’t well-received by critics and garnered the lowest box office total in the franchise. Mattie Lucas of The Dispatch sums up the general consensus of the third entry, “One of the most inane pieces of soulless product, churned out to make a quick buck, I have seen in quite some time.” Still, Fraser was his fun energetic self within the movie and easily prevented it from being an outright disaster.
Credit: The Mummy
Of course, The Mummy franchise is a lucrative property since the Fraser versions brought in over $1 billion dollars at the box office combined. Tomb of the Dragon Emperor still collected a healthy $403 million, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when Universal decided to reboot the series with Tom Cruise as the lead this time. However, the studio jumped the gun, as Universal was primed to start its own Marvel Cinematic Universe with its iconic monsters and the film was an introduction to the Dark Universe. The problem? The Mummy flopped with critics and fans, garnering a weak 15% on rotten tomatoes and more importantly, collecting a measly $410 million worldwide. That number is on par with what Fraser’s version usually made; however, the big difference was that production and marketing totaled over $340 million, thus The Mummy needed to make $450 just to break even.
Ultimately, the film lost the studio over $60 million and effectively killed the dark universe. Looking back on the reboot, Fraser gave his opinion on why the 2017 movie flopped and noted that it lacked the fun his trilogy of films had, “It is hard to make that movie,” Fraser told Variety. “The ingredient that we had going for our Mummy, which I didn’t see in that film, was fun. That was what was lacking in that incarnation. It was much of a straight-ahead horror movie. “The Mummy” should be a thrill ride, but not terrifying and scary.”
Credit: The Mummy
A very interesting perspective from Fraser. While it’s definitely possible to make a great Mummy movie that’s scary, the remake made the mistake of trying to recapture the blockbuster aspects without the fun. If you’re going the horror route, The Mummy should’ve been a smaller film, but the actor is otherwise right that the Tom Cruise version needed to be a thrill ride to justify its huge price tag. Also, The Mummy focused a little too much on the future of the Dark Universe, which was a distraction overall. The 53-year-old addressed whether he would be willing to do a fourth film if it came up, and Fraser’s answer is somewhat surprising, “I don’t know how it would work, but I’d be open to it if someone came up with the right conceit.”
Given the huge financial loss that Universal took on the last film, it would be shocking if a fourth film was greenlit anytime soon, though it would be fun to see Rick O’Connell and the gang one more time.
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