Brendan Fraser: Why Tom Cruise’s ‘Mummy’ Reboot Flopped

Not a fan. Brendan Fraser, who starred in the original Mummy franchise, has a theory why Tom Cruise’s film remake wasn’t as successful.

“It is hard to make that movie,” the Whale star, 53, told Variety in an interview published on Wednesday, October 12. “The ingredient that we had going for our Mummy, which I didn’t see in that film, was fun.”

He added: “That was what was lacking in that incarnation. It was too much of a straight-ahead horror movie. The Mummy should be a thrill ride, but not terrifying and scary. I know how difficult it is to pull it off. I tried to do it three times.”

The George of the Jungle actor made his Mummy debut in 1999, playing adventurer Rick O’Connell in the first film. The movie — directed by Stephen Sommers — was so popular that it spawned two follow-ups in 2001 and 2008, respectively. Nearly 10 years later, the 60-year-old Top Gun star was helmed to lead a reboot as new character Nick Morton. Cruise’s 2017 adaptation was followed by a brand-new story and featured plenty of action-packed stunts.

“We jumped over buildings together that exploded,” costar Jake Johnson recalled on The Daily Beast’s “The Last Laugh” podcast in August 2021. “We were on a three-story building that collapsed, and I landed on my back and told him that something went wrong because I got hurt. And he said, ‘Injured or hurt?’ I said, ‘What’s the difference?’ And he goes, ‘Can you go again or is something broken?’ And I was like, ‘No, I mean, I can go again.’ Then he goes, ‘So you’re hurt. Of course you’re hurt. You fell off a three-story building.’”

Despite a set injury, the 44-year-old New Girl alum and the Jerry Maguire actor had a good rapport on set.

“He’s an intense guy,” Johnson quipped at the time. “In terms of a filmmaker, he wants to entertain an audience, and if you’re not all about that, you’re going to get knocked off the bronco. Because he is there to entertain an audience and he’s willing to really put himself in harm’s way to do it.”

While Cruise has not responded to Fraser’s criticisms, the 2017 movie’s director previously regretted remaking the legendary franchise.

“I tend to subscribe to the point of view that you learn nothing from your successes, and you learn everything from your failures,” filmmaker Alex Kurtzman admitted during an April episode of The Playlist’s “Bingeworthy” podcast. “And that was probably the biggest failure of my life, both personally and professionally. There’s about a million things I regret about it, but it also gave me so many gifts that are inexpressibly beautiful.”

He added at the time: “I didn’t become a director until I made that movie, and it wasn’t because it was well directed — it was because it wasn’t. I would not have understood many of the things that I now understand about what it means to be a director had I not gone through that experience.”

While Cruise’s Mummy did not lead to a sequel film, Fraser would be open to revisiting his iteration — if it had “the right conceit.”