Brendan Fraser says the 2017 'Mummy' reboot starring Tom Cruise flopped because it wasn't fun.
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Brendan Fraser thinks Tom Cruise's Mummy reboot flopped because it wasn't fun: 'It's hard to make that movie'
The actor also says he'd be open to reprising his role as adventurer Rick O'Connell in a fourth film.
By
Jessica WangOctober 12, 2022 at 01:23 PM EDT
Brendan Fraser has shared his thoughts on the 2017 reboot of
The Mummy starring
Tom Cruise, which flopped at the domestic box office with a
$32.2 million debut.
"It is hard to make that movie,"
Fraser told Variety in a new joint cover interview with
The Whale director
Darren Aronofsky. "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 too much of a straight-ahead horror movie."
The film, Fraser explained, "should be a thrill ride, but not terrifying and scary."
Brendan Fraser in 'The Mummy'
| CREDIT: EVERETT COLLECTION
The actor also said he'd be open to reprising his role as the adventurer in a fourth film "if someone came up with the right conceit."
Fraser starred opposite
Rachel Weisz, Arnold Vosloo, and Oded Fehr in director Stephen Sommers' 1999 film
The Mummy, which follows Fraser's adventurer as he unwittingly awakens the vengeful reincarnation of an Egyptian priest during an expedition in the Sahara Desert. The actor reprised his role in two sequels, 2001's
The Mummy Returns and 2008's
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.
The films were a commercial success and turned Fraser into a megastar, setting the stage for his turns in
Bedazzled, Journey to the Center of the Earth, No Sudden Move, and more.
While he wasn't tapped for the reboot,
Fraser previously expressed support for director Alex Kurtzman's take on the movie. "I know very little about the project itself, but I know it's going to be great for an audience, because they were always there for that thrilling popcorn movie feeling and adventure," he told
Access in 2017.
Kurtzman called the reboot his "biggest failure" earlier this year. "I tend to subscribe to the point of view that you learn nothing from your successes, and you learn everything from your failures," he said on The Playlist's
Bingeworthy podcast in April. "And [
The Mummy] was probably the biggest failure of my life, both personally and professionally."
While "there's about a million things" he regrets about the film, Kurtzman said, "It gave me so many gifts that are inexpressibly beautiful."
"I didn't become a director until I made that movie, and it wasn't because it was well directed," he explained. "It was because it wasn't. I am very grateful for the opportunity to make those mistakes because it rebuilt me into a tougher person, and it also rebuilt me into a clearer filmmaker."
