After the blockbuster hits of two sequels of the original The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001) and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) an unexpected flop of the fourth sequel The Mummy 2 by the year 2017 occurred. After the flop production of The Mummy (2017) director Alex Kurtzman admitted that the movie was a failure and he has learned things from mistakes.
The first three movies proved to be a huge success till now, were based on action-adventure and fun. Contrary to that, The Mummy (2017) is based too much on horror, which returned a great disaster for the movie.
The Success of the First Three Movies:
The Mummy was released in the year 1999 starring Brendan Fraser became a commercial success earning over $416.4 million worldwide as opposed to the production budget of $80 million.
The movie was an action-adventure movie directed by Stephen Sommers. It was the remake of the 1932 film of the same name. The film became number one in the United States and Canada. The film won BMI Film & TV Awards and Saturn Award.
In the year 2001, the sequel was released by name The Mummy Return again starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, Arnold Vosloo, John Hannah, Oded Fehr, Freddie Boath, Alun Armstrong, and Dwayne Johnson. This was the debut of Dwayne Johnson.
The Mummy Return also became a huge success for Brendan Fraser.
After two back-to-back successes in the same genre movie. Brendan Fraser became the star of the second sequel The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor premiered in Moscow in 2008. And was released in the United States on August 1, 2008. This movie proved to be the last and final hit of The Mummy version by Brendan.
Failure of The Mummy (2017):
Director Alex Kurtzman made an unsuccessful attempt to reboot The Mummy in the Dark Universe which flopped so badly. The star cast of this movie was Tom Cruise, who is a top-known actor in the industry.
But this movie became a big failure for the actor Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise can really act up to the mark, but he failed to do so in this movie. According to the real star (Brendan Fraser) of The Mummy movies. The movie failed because it was supposed to be a thrill ride not terrifying and scary. The movie failed because it was more in the horror genre instead of action-adventure. Brendan mentioned, “Tom Cruise’s 2017 reboot wasn’t fun”.
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The three movies of Fraser earned over $1.2 Billion which was more than expected but Tom Cruise’s 2017 reboot earned $409 million worldwide and 80 million dollars in the US, which was quite disappointing according to the investment and expectation of being successful in the Dark Universe.
Fraser mentioned in an interview that he had tried three times to put his efforts into the Mummy. He also said that “It is hard to make that movie, 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 Mummy’ should be a thrill ride, but not terrifying and scary.”
Return of Brendan Fraser after Trilogy:
After the failure of the entrance of Cruise in the franchise The Mummy and reviews of Brendan. There are rumors all around that Brendan is soon returning to the franchise after the successful trilogy. The love and enthusiasm for the franchise, Brendan expressed he would love to revive The Mummy more than once.
The reputation of the franchise The Mummy and The Dark Universe is expected to fix soon with the comeback of Brendan after the legacy of the trilogy. This is still a question if the new sequel is made who will co-star Brendan in that?