In the ’90s and ’00s, The Mummy Series brought light-hearted adventure entertainment to theaters. According to Brendan Fraser, this lightness was missing from the reboot, which was successful both at the box office and in the reviews failed catastrophically.
After the flop of The Mummy with action star Tom Cruise, Universal canceled a total of ten films. Today is the beginning and end of the short-lived Dark Universe on TV.
The Mummy on TV: An undead wants to exterminate all of humanity
In the reboot of the Universal classic, the plot has been brought into the present. Here the millennia-old tomb of the Egyptian Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) is uncovered, whereupon she comes to life and begins a campaign of revenge against humanity. The treasure hunter Nick Morton (Cruise) wants to stop them and receives support from his colleague Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) and the mysterious Dr. Jekyll (Russell Crowe).
For the director, The Mummy was “the worst defeat of my life”
Things could have been even worse at the box office, after all The Mummy grossed over $400 million. But given the high expectations regarding an entire film universe and the production costs of 195 million, the blockbuster is considered a financial flop.
Not only that, the reviews also panned the new edition. Our community gives the film a 5.3 out of 10, which is still gracious considering the votes on Rotten Tomatoes. The film received just 35 percent approval from the audience and only 15 percent from critics. For director Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek), The Mummy was a painful experience, as he explained on The Playlist podcast Bingeworthy in 2022.
[Die Mumie] was fine the worst defeat of my life. I regret a million things about it. I wasn’t a director yet. […] Now when I feel like something is wrong, I no longer remain silent.
He didn’t elaborate on what exactly was wrong during filming. However, Variety reported that the excessive control of the main character is said to have had a huge influence on the filming. But perhaps the project was doomed from the start and the entertaining original film wasn’t suitable for a dark reboot.
10 films were planned for the Dark Universe
In The Mummy the character Dr. Jekyll already has another planned spin-off. The iconic monster films from the 1920s to 50s Years Universal wanted to bring new life into a connected universe. The Mummy was first made into a film in 1932.
In addition to Cruise and Crowe, there were other top stars up their sleeve. Johnny Depp was set to star in The Invisible Man and Javier Bardem in Frankenstein’s Monster. A total of ten films were planned, all of which were canceled after The Mummy.
You can see for yourself today whether the criticism is justified or whether The Mummy was judged too harshly. And there is hope for fans of the original series, as Brendan Fraser would be willing to take on the role of adventurer Rick O’Connell for the fourth time.
When is The Mummy with Tom Cruise on TV?
The blockbuster is on today, Thursday, October 17th, at 8:15 p.m. on VOX. The station will show the repeat on October 18th at 10:15 p.m. If you missed The Mummy, you can currently stream it with a subscription on both Netflix and Amazon Prime.
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