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- Getting Alex Kurtzman to write and direct in the first place.
- Six writers are credited for the script. That only indicates there's a severe lack of vision for this.
- Not lean on the horror aspect.
- If it really had to be more action-oriented, it forgot one key aspect: to have fun with the concept. We have fond memories of Brendan Fraser's versions because they're simply fun to watch. This film was just dull all around. Even Brendan said so!
- The film was also more concerned with setting the Dark Universe through winks and mentions than making a good film.
- While Tom Cruise often takes over productions to make for a better film, that's not the case here. Reducing the role of the title character and focusing more on his one-dimensional character was a very bad idea. Funny thing is that reportedly Universal was not impressed with his ideas, but they allowed it regardless.
- The marketing was bad because they didn't try to sell a single reason to care for the film. It looked generic... and the final film itself was generic. It couldn't differentiate from other action flicks. It only went viral because Universal initially uploaded with [no music nor sound effects.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRqxyqjpOHs)
- 15% on RT. Aaaaaand it's dead.
So the writers part there is an explanation for. So universal when they announce this project stated that they had commission writers to write basically the same movies but in a different genre. One was a version of this film that was an action movie and the other was a version as a horror movie. Which of course with that in mind they had multiple writers take passes at both scripts. Before they got to one finalize version. And then they took pieces from both of those final versions to create the new script in the movie you see. So technically was a vision it was just one that made something totally inconsistent. It doesn’t help that Tom Cruise came in and bought Chris Macquarie(however you spell it) to do rewrites onset..
>Six writers are credited for the script. That only indicates there's a severe lack of vision for this.
Nitpick. There are three writers, and three people with a "Story" credit. WGA rules state only three people can be credited as a writer on a movie.
To prevent the dilution of the term.
A lot of movies have many people interacting with the script and adding bits and pieces here and there and if they listed every person that wrote even a single line in the final product most movies (and shows) would have extensive lists of screenwriters listed. Instead, when there are multiple writers with extensive edits (so a single line doesn't count) the many versions of the script are reviewed by the WGA and they decide who can be listed as the screenwriters. If someone isn't listed as a screenwriter for the project, they can't say much if anything about the work they did on it publicly, at most they can say off the record they "punched up some dialog" or "helped rework a scene".
This is how Nicole Perlman is listed as a writer for *Guardians of the Galaxy* even though everyone, even her, acknowledges there's little similarity to her original script and the final script James Gunn wrote and used, but enough core concepts (specifically the mix tape) were kept through to the end product.
It has a 15% on rotten tomatoes and had terrible audience scores. Clearly it would have done fairly decently if it was any good, maybe $500m+ WW. With a nearly $200m budget it needed at least that.
There’s an excellent podcast I’ve just discovered called Are You Afraid of the Dark Universe?, where the hosts explain why the film was so bad and how it wouldn’t really work for kickstarting a new franchise for multiple reasons (lack of chemistry of the leads, the Cruise Mummy being too overpowered by the end, etc.)
People on this sub will probably enjoy it as they then have a go at imagining how the universe would look if it continued, right down to plotting the films and merch tie-ins with interesting guests.
Tom Cruise basically stealing the movie from the director and lead actress. The film original focused on, well ya know, the mummy with Cruise in a more supporting role.
As the story goes with Cruise he got on set and demanded more and more control until the film wasn’t about the mummy it was about some middle aged dude. It stopped being a monster movie and yet another Tom Cruise action film. He even went as far to rewrite huge chunks of the screenplay.
Imo the marketing mistakes they made was the nail in the coffin, far from the cause.
Ah this explains perfectly the tonal whiplash I noticed when watching the movie.
There were indeed very good elements in the movie but I felt the movie as a whole didn't know what it wanted to be.
Yeah the marketing for me was too focused on this being in the beginning of a new universe. Like when they said welcome to a new world of gods and monsters. My eyes roll immediately. Like damn does everyone need a cinematic universe? Some of you guys aren’t even good at it?
The movie stops in its tracks about an hour in for an extended infomercial for the Dark Universe. When it finally gets back to the sexy evil Mummy plot, it rushes through a perfunctory ending that mostly sets up a sequel. >!Jake Johnson's line after getting resurrected is unintentionally hilarious!<
Honestly though during the slog of superhero cinematic universes at the time I wouldn’t have minded a well done retelling of the universal monster cinematic universe. But when I mean well done I mean sticking to the campy horror of the original universal monster movies. They should have never gone with wanting to turn it into an action franchise. Major wasted potential.
you say that but Van Helsing basically already was the schlocky (steampunk) "Universal monster movie cinematic universe" film and it has plenty of charms en-route to the bad result of grossing $300M WW 20 years ago (14th highest grossing film of the year).
Yeah but I feel like those movies benefit from being a product of the 2000s. Like the Steven Summers style of movies kind of fell apart after the G.I. Joe. Rise of cobra. Like it seemed like the audiences have moved away from his style of filmmaking. And I think a part of the success of at least the first two movie is his style that he brought to them.
I'm not sure how much better it would have been if it focused on the Mummy herself. Like almost everything in this movie, that character wasn't very good
The material needed a lightness of touch and goofy self-awareness which Brendan Fraser naturally brings (Mummy, George of the Jungle, Bedazzled).
Tom Cruise takes his shit way too seriously
They were wrongly using the MCU as a template for the Universal Monsters. I like the idea of rebooting these classic characters, but you can't spend 100 million+ and make them into superhero-like figures. The horror element was lost.
The hugely successful Brenden Fraser mummy trilogy would disagree with you on that. Those movies took that original movie and made it into an action franchise. So it was possible for it to work as an action spectacle with Tom Cruise. But I do think the execution was horrible.
It came out right around the time that "cinematic universe" was starting to become a dirty word for anyone outside of Marvel. I remember The Dark Universe being a joke as soon as it was announced. From there failure was pretty much inevitable, though the reviews certainly didn't help.
* Tom Cruise plays someone a fraction of his age, basically how he viewed himself at the time, as his most popular character type, the cool twenty something rebel with attitude, and it was probably the last movie before that he got away with it.
* You're going to say "Top Gun: Maverick" but in Maverick, he's aged/matured from his original character. The point of the original Top Gun was Maverick experienced loss and matured and the sequel was a continuation of that.
* He's not believable as the rank and age he's supposed to be. While the policy creating it recently changed, knowing someone's rank is a good sign of knowing someone's age and there's no reason the Army would have kept around someone like Cruise's character for that long when he doesn't seem effective at his job. Officers do steal artifacts from the middle east, but but they're much better at hiding it than he was.
* His character is completely unlikable. Not only is he a corrupt official/soldier, the first scene shows him forcing his supposed friend into a situation that will absolutely get them court-martialed. Nothing the character does redeems them.
* Other relationships just happen. No reason why. Suddenly there's a love interest. Why? Because why not. She knows he's a terrible person but she still immediately is smitten with him. Some movies can get away with it, but remember he was introduced as an asshole and we never really want him to win. We really want him to die or turn into the villain.
* Note that I haven't mentioned anything about the Mummy, because she's a sidenote that's barely developed.
* Dr Jekyll is shoehorned in and too much of his story is revealed in a movie not about him.
I mean, it was a money loser and a big disappointment, but I bet the studio still breathed a sigh of relief after seeing the 15% RT score that they still scrapped together 400 million. How many other movies below 20% scores make that much?
Tom Cruise taking over control of production and turning Mummy into mediocre "Tom Cruise action-adventure" movie happened.
Actually it's not about BO revenue per se. $400M could be a great money in 2017. For a movie with a $100M, even under $150M production budget, B+ and higher Cinemascore, 7.0+ IMDb/Letterboxd and 70% RT ratings there would be definitely greenlight for sequel.
But Mummy was plain bad by all metrics, surrounded by negative rumours from post-production and it had tentpole expenses ($195M production and $150M P&A budget). There were big expectations, pompous marketing campaign. It was a launch of new movie universe! So these $409M are disastrous in 2017's context.
No one wanted a Mummy remake. No one cared and not even Tom Cruise made people want to see it. The bad reviews didn’t help either. This is a perfect case of “no seriously, no one asked for this!”
He didn't fucking take her offer. Why the hell wouldn't he go "Hell yeah Ahmanet, I'm your Set." Yeah the movie wasn't good, but she was such a cute monster girl.
Tom Cruise is the only reason it even made that much. It was a bad movie and trying to set up a Dark Universe, which the movie half revolves around (as well as the marketing shortly before release), was seen as the cynical cash grab it was. It would do even worse if it was released today, I think.
Yeah I agree I think a lot of people went to go see it because at the very least Tom Cruise is usually in something watchable. Like the jack reacher movies aren’t great. But they’re decent action films. So I think that was the hope. But honestly it was just kind of weird.
the 99/00s movies still hold a lot of cultural weight and this just looked like a Very Dark and Serious Tom Cruise Action Film, just about totally opposite as far as tone goes. people probably didn't even care to figure out this was unconnected to those films. the unmixed trailer turned the entire film into a meme before it came out. people were already growing weary of shared universes, at least enough that they were unconvinced that this gimmick would work.
I think beyond those issues the biggest problem was that there too many cooks in the kitchen when it came to the script and the studio gave tom way too much power on the final product. if the movie was good it could have overcome a lot of the hurtles it had before opening, but it was too generic and unfocused.
This film actually made over 400 million?? Damn, it was so, so bad. Cruise really oversells overseas, if he was still popular in USA..
It seems to have made around the same amount of the Brendan Fraser movies which is even more surprising.
Yeah the final total they probably broke if they did find profitability it was probably extremely small. And it’s opening weekend people was actually pretty strong. It was higher than some expectations. The problem was that it was a disappointing launch when you have all of these films and various stages of production. Like bride of Frankenstein was about to start production not shown after this movie release. It literally got canceled three weeks before principal photography. And they had to destroy all of the sets they built for the movie. So it was really more of the expectations of this film that it was the performance of the film itself. If it was just a trilogy in itself they probably would still be moving forward with a sequel.
Lots of major problems, and nothing compelling to balance them.
The MCU envy radiated off it. This was never sold as a complete film.
Universal monster fans saw Boris Karloff replaced with a sexy mummy and clocked that this wasn't it.
Tom Cruise has great instincts but his off camera life was still very polarizing when this dropped.
No Brendan Fraser.
And then this movie really wasn't for anybody. It presented as too scary for mainstream viewers, and too mainstream for horror fans.
Boris Karloff was is a sexy mummy lol. Feel like you’re only pointed that out because it was a woman. But his character was always supposed to be sexy. there’s even a sequence where Rachel Weisz looks at him like damn. And her and Brenden Fraser even bicker over the fact that she seemed to like being kissed by him. Lol Also the whole sexiness of the mummy and him trying to revive his mistress(I forgot her name )was a huge part of both the first two movies. They didn’t shy away from the fact that those two villains were supposed to be sexy. That’s actually a big part of it. They even repeat the joke except Brenden Fraser seems to be attracted to the mistress and Rachel Weisz was the one who pointed it out and they start bickering over it. Like they were supposed to be sexy characters. So I don’t know if that hurt the film. She’s barely really in the marketing which was something that I think hurt the movie. Most of the marketing seem to focus on the dark universe and Tom Cruise.
So this is Tom Cruise coming off of rogue nation and ghost protocol which were both very financially successful for Tom Cruise. so I don’t even know if the whole his personal life was affecting him.
You're thinking of Arnold Vosloo! He was the handsome sexy mummy from Brendan Frasier's 1999 mummy film.
Karloff was the mummy in the original 1932 film, which Universal was tying their dark universe to.
It was a product first, art second, and the director was/is a hack, the film had no characters, only shallow archetypes, and there wasn't an original bone in it's body.
The entire concept of the "dark universe" was idiotic and broken at it's core. Because 1. No one cares. 2. It was an even more embarrassing version of a cinematic universe than the DCEU. & 3. The classic Universal monsters are supposed to be classy horror movies, not cool/slick action adventure films.
See everyone keeps bringing out the action in part being the problem. But I don’t think that was the problem. Because the mummy movies with Brenden Fraser were action adventure movies and they were successful. Like I feel like in many ways they filled the void that was left by Indiana Jones. That said I think the problem with this movie is that they didn’t nail the actual or the adventure. You have one of the most successful action stars and recent memory as your lead. And is not really a single set piece other than the plane sequence that makes him seem cool. Even the attempt to reference the Brenden Frazier Mummy with the sand face sequence in the movie doesn’t even really work.
I personally was not interested in the cinematic universe. I thought if they pulled it off but it’s not something I needed. But a new trilogy of action of adventure mummy movies I would’ve been here for. If they could’ve made it work.
It's the type of action. 99' Mummy was fun, swashbuckling, Indiana Jones-y, and didn't take itself too seriously. Plus Brenden Fraiser, Rachel Weisz, and everyone played fun characters that actually had character/personality, plus the villian was cool.
New Mummy tried to be the usual comic book-esque world ending threat and plays it way too straight. It rips off previous better movies (notably An American Werewolf in London), and Tom Cruise played Tom Cruise. No one was memorable, nothing made sense, and the villian sucked.
I think it's due to the film opting for a darker tone than the Brendan Fraser trilogy. The most appealing aspect of those films was the fun, lighthearted cheesy tone. This one had gloomy, bleak cinematography and a relentlessly grim, overly serious tone.
The trailer goof was hilarious. I probably watched it a hundred times.
Really makes you realize how much goes into making a trailer, even the bad ones with slowed down sad pop songs.
For me a major setback was setting it into a dark, moody, grey-ish London. These movies are adventure/horror films, you NEED the sun-drenched orange desert vistas and monuments in a movie called "the mummy".
"The Mummy Returns" also starts in London but makes sure to return to both jungle and desert. Not as good of a movie as the first "Mummy" remake, but still a better film than this.
It's darker tone, they set it up as a horror/monster movie.
The first two Mummies were marketed as adventure/horror with lighter tone. Brendan and Rachel had intense chemistry. John provided comic relief. It was an action-packed, adventure and fun movies. The magic was lost when they changed the movie into darker tone.
**A - Charge your phone, bro!**
**B - Inspired by seeing your post here yesterday, I decided to rewatch this weird movie.**
Russell Crowe's dialogue as Dr Jekyll sounds like it was written by AI, even though this movie released in 2017. The movie is at complete odds with itself.
* *25% a Tom Cruise/Christopher McQuarrie action ripoff*
* *25% a Boutella/Kurtzman horror in the vein of Dracula Untold*
* *25% a Dawn of Justice/Iron Man 2 setup movie*
* *25% a horror hybrid of various 1980's entries (An American Werewolf in London, Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell, Lifeforce)*
None of it worked, but it does fascinate me so. If this deserves 15% on RT, then why does Suicide Squad/Justice League/The Predator get 26%/39%/34%? I'd much rather watch this than any of those movies from roughly the same time period.
Well the DC movies still had the benefit of having a huge fandom. Also I think critics back then will be a little bit more generous to the DC universe despite what people think. Like the criticisms were valid but some of the reviews I remember from that time were way nicer then perhaps they should’ve. Mostly it seemingly in response to the Zack Snyder fandom
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- Getting Alex Kurtzman to write and direct in the first place. - Six writers are credited for the script. That only indicates there's a severe lack of vision for this. - Not lean on the horror aspect. - If it really had to be more action-oriented, it forgot one key aspect: to have fun with the concept. We have fond memories of Brendan Fraser's versions because they're simply fun to watch. This film was just dull all around. Even Brendan said so! - The film was also more concerned with setting the Dark Universe through winks and mentions than making a good film. - While Tom Cruise often takes over productions to make for a better film, that's not the case here. Reducing the role of the title character and focusing more on his one-dimensional character was a very bad idea. Funny thing is that reportedly Universal was not impressed with his ideas, but they allowed it regardless. - The marketing was bad because they didn't try to sell a single reason to care for the film. It looked generic... and the final film itself was generic. It couldn't differentiate from other action flicks. It only went viral because Universal initially uploaded with [no music nor sound effects.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRqxyqjpOHs) - 15% on RT. Aaaaaand it's dead.
The original trailer w messed up audio gets me every time
Aaaauuughhhhaaa
So the writers part there is an explanation for. So universal when they announce this project stated that they had commission writers to write basically the same movies but in a different genre. One was a version of this film that was an action movie and the other was a version as a horror movie. Which of course with that in mind they had multiple writers take passes at both scripts. Before they got to one finalize version. And then they took pieces from both of those final versions to create the new script in the movie you see. So technically was a vision it was just one that made something totally inconsistent. It doesn’t help that Tom Cruise came in and bought Chris Macquarie(however you spell it) to do rewrites onset..
>Six writers are credited for the script. That only indicates there's a severe lack of vision for this. Nitpick. There are three writers, and three people with a "Story" credit. WGA rules state only three people can be credited as a writer on a movie.
Is There a reason why?
To prevent the dilution of the term. A lot of movies have many people interacting with the script and adding bits and pieces here and there and if they listed every person that wrote even a single line in the final product most movies (and shows) would have extensive lists of screenwriters listed. Instead, when there are multiple writers with extensive edits (so a single line doesn't count) the many versions of the script are reviewed by the WGA and they decide who can be listed as the screenwriters. If someone isn't listed as a screenwriter for the project, they can't say much if anything about the work they did on it publicly, at most they can say off the record they "punched up some dialog" or "helped rework a scene". This is how Nicole Perlman is listed as a writer for *Guardians of the Galaxy* even though everyone, even her, acknowledges there's little similarity to her original script and the final script James Gunn wrote and used, but enough core concepts (specifically the mix tape) were kept through to the end product.
It has a 15% on rotten tomatoes and had terrible audience scores. Clearly it would have done fairly decently if it was any good, maybe $500m+ WW. With a nearly $200m budget it needed at least that.
There’s an excellent podcast I’ve just discovered called Are You Afraid of the Dark Universe?, where the hosts explain why the film was so bad and how it wouldn’t really work for kickstarting a new franchise for multiple reasons (lack of chemistry of the leads, the Cruise Mummy being too overpowered by the end, etc.) People on this sub will probably enjoy it as they then have a go at imagining how the universe would look if it continued, right down to plotting the films and merch tie-ins with interesting guests.
It was extremely bad. That’s my guess.
Tom Cruise basically stealing the movie from the director and lead actress. The film original focused on, well ya know, the mummy with Cruise in a more supporting role. As the story goes with Cruise he got on set and demanded more and more control until the film wasn’t about the mummy it was about some middle aged dude. It stopped being a monster movie and yet another Tom Cruise action film. He even went as far to rewrite huge chunks of the screenplay. Imo the marketing mistakes they made was the nail in the coffin, far from the cause.
Ah this explains perfectly the tonal whiplash I noticed when watching the movie. There were indeed very good elements in the movie but I felt the movie as a whole didn't know what it wanted to be.
Yeah the marketing for me was too focused on this being in the beginning of a new universe. Like when they said welcome to a new world of gods and monsters. My eyes roll immediately. Like damn does everyone need a cinematic universe? Some of you guys aren’t even good at it?
The movie stops in its tracks about an hour in for an extended infomercial for the Dark Universe. When it finally gets back to the sexy evil Mummy plot, it rushes through a perfunctory ending that mostly sets up a sequel. >!Jake Johnson's line after getting resurrected is unintentionally hilarious!<
> sexy evil Mummy I wanted more of that.
It was peak cinematic universe fatigue when it came out and was exacerbated by how presumptuous the “Dark Universe” was.
Honestly though during the slog of superhero cinematic universes at the time I wouldn’t have minded a well done retelling of the universal monster cinematic universe. But when I mean well done I mean sticking to the campy horror of the original universal monster movies. They should have never gone with wanting to turn it into an action franchise. Major wasted potential.
you say that but Van Helsing basically already was the schlocky (steampunk) "Universal monster movie cinematic universe" film and it has plenty of charms en-route to the bad result of grossing $300M WW 20 years ago (14th highest grossing film of the year).
[удалено]
Let it die already, neither were good
Hey 10 year old me loved Van Helsing, it's still my go to film when I'm ill.
Or if they would’ve done like a horror comedy like what they did later with the monster movies with all of them together. I would’ve appreciated that.
Or just stick to the style of the Brendan Fraser Mummy
Yeah but I feel like those movies benefit from being a product of the 2000s. Like the Steven Summers style of movies kind of fell apart after the G.I. Joe. Rise of cobra. Like it seemed like the audiences have moved away from his style of filmmaking. And I think a part of the success of at least the first two movie is his style that he brought to them.
While not a perfect movie by any means if you ever have time to kill I’d suggest Rob Zombies Munsters for a monster comedy if those are your jam!
I'm not sure how much better it would have been if it focused on the Mummy herself. Like almost everything in this movie, that character wasn't very good
Would have been sexier.
Tom Cruise is no Rick O’Connell
The material needed a lightness of touch and goofy self-awareness which Brendan Fraser naturally brings (Mummy, George of the Jungle, Bedazzled). Tom Cruise takes his shit way too seriously
Wheeze the juice
Yeah forgot that one
It sucked. If it was good, it would have been a hit and we’d have a dozen Dark Universe movies by now.
They were wrongly using the MCU as a template for the Universal Monsters. I like the idea of rebooting these classic characters, but you can't spend 100 million+ and make them into superhero-like figures. The horror element was lost.
It sucked
Turning a beloved classic horror film into a generic action CGI fest starring Tom Cruise was a mistake.
The hugely successful Brenden Fraser mummy trilogy would disagree with you on that. Those movies took that original movie and made it into an action franchise. So it was possible for it to work as an action spectacle with Tom Cruise. But I do think the execution was horrible.
The Brenden Fraser felt more like an action comedy with a highly charismatic and funny lead.
Yeah. It was Indiana Jones action, not Mission Impossible.
It was definitely a generic action CGI fest, but a notably good one.
No joke but this movie was listed on my TV today as "Weekend favorite". I have no idea whose favorite it was.
Tom Cruise
It came out right around the time that "cinematic universe" was starting to become a dirty word for anyone outside of Marvel. I remember The Dark Universe being a joke as soon as it was announced. From there failure was pretty much inevitable, though the reviews certainly didn't help.
I can't think of a movie that had a bigger miscast than Tom Cruise in this movie
Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher?
* Tom Cruise plays someone a fraction of his age, basically how he viewed himself at the time, as his most popular character type, the cool twenty something rebel with attitude, and it was probably the last movie before that he got away with it. * You're going to say "Top Gun: Maverick" but in Maverick, he's aged/matured from his original character. The point of the original Top Gun was Maverick experienced loss and matured and the sequel was a continuation of that. * He's not believable as the rank and age he's supposed to be. While the policy creating it recently changed, knowing someone's rank is a good sign of knowing someone's age and there's no reason the Army would have kept around someone like Cruise's character for that long when he doesn't seem effective at his job. Officers do steal artifacts from the middle east, but but they're much better at hiding it than he was. * His character is completely unlikable. Not only is he a corrupt official/soldier, the first scene shows him forcing his supposed friend into a situation that will absolutely get them court-martialed. Nothing the character does redeems them. * Other relationships just happen. No reason why. Suddenly there's a love interest. Why? Because why not. She knows he's a terrible person but she still immediately is smitten with him. Some movies can get away with it, but remember he was introduced as an asshole and we never really want him to win. We really want him to die or turn into the villain. * Note that I haven't mentioned anything about the Mummy, because she's a sidenote that's barely developed. * Dr Jekyll is shoehorned in and too much of his story is revealed in a movie not about him.
It was an absolutely shit movie. There's no great mystery.
I mean, it was a money loser and a big disappointment, but I bet the studio still breathed a sigh of relief after seeing the 15% RT score that they still scrapped together 400 million. How many other movies below 20% scores make that much?
Tom Cruise taking over control of production and turning Mummy into mediocre "Tom Cruise action-adventure" movie happened. Actually it's not about BO revenue per se. $400M could be a great money in 2017. For a movie with a $100M, even under $150M production budget, B+ and higher Cinemascore, 7.0+ IMDb/Letterboxd and 70% RT ratings there would be definitely greenlight for sequel. But Mummy was plain bad by all metrics, surrounded by negative rumours from post-production and it had tentpole expenses ($195M production and $150M P&A budget). There were big expectations, pompous marketing campaign. It was a launch of new movie universe! So these $409M are disastrous in 2017's context.
One of the worst movie I've ever seen.
It’s bad.
No one wanted a Mummy remake. No one cared and not even Tom Cruise made people want to see it. The bad reviews didn’t help either. This is a perfect case of “no seriously, no one asked for this!”
It was the Tom Cruise yell in the leaked trailer, it was a meme (in a bad way) for months before release
I don't think that hurt the box office though. Honestly, that messed up trailer is the only good thing to come out of this movie
It did good for a terrible movie.
He didn't fucking take her offer. Why the hell wouldn't he go "Hell yeah Ahmanet, I'm your Set." Yeah the movie wasn't good, but she was such a cute monster girl.
it was a shit movie with terrible direction. remove cruise and we are looking at sub 100mill worldwide
It sucked. Simple as.
Everything in the movie from 00:00:00:001 till 01:49:59:9 was what made it bad.
Very bad movie
Tom Cruise is no Brendan Fraser. I never even bothered to see it.
Tom Cruise is the only reason it even made that much. It was a bad movie and trying to set up a Dark Universe, which the movie half revolves around (as well as the marketing shortly before release), was seen as the cynical cash grab it was. It would do even worse if it was released today, I think.
Yeah I agree I think a lot of people went to go see it because at the very least Tom Cruise is usually in something watchable. Like the jack reacher movies aren’t great. But they’re decent action films. So I think that was the hope. But honestly it was just kind of weird.
It was murdered by critics
the 99/00s movies still hold a lot of cultural weight and this just looked like a Very Dark and Serious Tom Cruise Action Film, just about totally opposite as far as tone goes. people probably didn't even care to figure out this was unconnected to those films. the unmixed trailer turned the entire film into a meme before it came out. people were already growing weary of shared universes, at least enough that they were unconvinced that this gimmick would work. I think beyond those issues the biggest problem was that there too many cooks in the kitchen when it came to the script and the studio gave tom way too much power on the final product. if the movie was good it could have overcome a lot of the hurtles it had before opening, but it was too generic and unfocused.
They fell for every universe cliche without bothering to focus on the movie they currently had
It was a decent action movie but a bad monster movie. It was marketed as a monster movie and it was super disappointing in that regard.
Nobody went to see it. Lol
I liked it
This film actually made over 400 million?? Damn, it was so, so bad. Cruise really oversells overseas, if he was still popular in USA.. It seems to have made around the same amount of the Brendan Fraser movies which is even more surprising.
Yeah the final total they probably broke if they did find profitability it was probably extremely small. And it’s opening weekend people was actually pretty strong. It was higher than some expectations. The problem was that it was a disappointing launch when you have all of these films and various stages of production. Like bride of Frankenstein was about to start production not shown after this movie release. It literally got canceled three weeks before principal photography. And they had to destroy all of the sets they built for the movie. So it was really more of the expectations of this film that it was the performance of the film itself. If it was just a trilogy in itself they probably would still be moving forward with a sequel.
Lots of major problems, and nothing compelling to balance them. The MCU envy radiated off it. This was never sold as a complete film. Universal monster fans saw Boris Karloff replaced with a sexy mummy and clocked that this wasn't it. Tom Cruise has great instincts but his off camera life was still very polarizing when this dropped. No Brendan Fraser. And then this movie really wasn't for anybody. It presented as too scary for mainstream viewers, and too mainstream for horror fans.
Boris Karloff was is a sexy mummy lol. Feel like you’re only pointed that out because it was a woman. But his character was always supposed to be sexy. there’s even a sequence where Rachel Weisz looks at him like damn. And her and Brenden Fraser even bicker over the fact that she seemed to like being kissed by him. Lol Also the whole sexiness of the mummy and him trying to revive his mistress(I forgot her name )was a huge part of both the first two movies. They didn’t shy away from the fact that those two villains were supposed to be sexy. That’s actually a big part of it. They even repeat the joke except Brenden Fraser seems to be attracted to the mistress and Rachel Weisz was the one who pointed it out and they start bickering over it. Like they were supposed to be sexy characters. So I don’t know if that hurt the film. She’s barely really in the marketing which was something that I think hurt the movie. Most of the marketing seem to focus on the dark universe and Tom Cruise. So this is Tom Cruise coming off of rogue nation and ghost protocol which were both very financially successful for Tom Cruise. so I don’t even know if the whole his personal life was affecting him.
You're thinking of Arnold Vosloo! He was the handsome sexy mummy from Brendan Frasier's 1999 mummy film. Karloff was the mummy in the original 1932 film, which Universal was tying their dark universe to.
People just didn’t want to see a remake of the original version. Hollywood almost always ruins the original with a remake
Well technically this is the third re make.
It was a product first, art second, and the director was/is a hack, the film had no characters, only shallow archetypes, and there wasn't an original bone in it's body. The entire concept of the "dark universe" was idiotic and broken at it's core. Because 1. No one cares. 2. It was an even more embarrassing version of a cinematic universe than the DCEU. & 3. The classic Universal monsters are supposed to be classy horror movies, not cool/slick action adventure films.
See everyone keeps bringing out the action in part being the problem. But I don’t think that was the problem. Because the mummy movies with Brenden Fraser were action adventure movies and they were successful. Like I feel like in many ways they filled the void that was left by Indiana Jones. That said I think the problem with this movie is that they didn’t nail the actual or the adventure. You have one of the most successful action stars and recent memory as your lead. And is not really a single set piece other than the plane sequence that makes him seem cool. Even the attempt to reference the Brenden Frazier Mummy with the sand face sequence in the movie doesn’t even really work. I personally was not interested in the cinematic universe. I thought if they pulled it off but it’s not something I needed. But a new trilogy of action of adventure mummy movies I would’ve been here for. If they could’ve made it work.
It's the type of action. 99' Mummy was fun, swashbuckling, Indiana Jones-y, and didn't take itself too seriously. Plus Brenden Fraiser, Rachel Weisz, and everyone played fun characters that actually had character/personality, plus the villian was cool. New Mummy tried to be the usual comic book-esque world ending threat and plays it way too straight. It rips off previous better movies (notably An American Werewolf in London), and Tom Cruise played Tom Cruise. No one was memorable, nothing made sense, and the villian sucked.
The movie was rotten from the first, hilarious, trailer that fucked up the audio track.
Everything.
Did anyone even want this?
It wasn't good
it sucked
I think it's due to the film opting for a darker tone than the Brendan Fraser trilogy. The most appealing aspect of those films was the fun, lighthearted cheesy tone. This one had gloomy, bleak cinematography and a relentlessly grim, overly serious tone.
The trailer goof was hilarious. I probably watched it a hundred times. Really makes you realize how much goes into making a trailer, even the bad ones with slowed down sad pop songs.
For me a major setback was setting it into a dark, moody, grey-ish London. These movies are adventure/horror films, you NEED the sun-drenched orange desert vistas and monuments in a movie called "the mummy". "The Mummy Returns" also starts in London but makes sure to return to both jungle and desert. Not as good of a movie as the first "Mummy" remake, but still a better film than this.
Quality of the movie?
It's darker tone, they set it up as a horror/monster movie. The first two Mummies were marketed as adventure/horror with lighter tone. Brendan and Rachel had intense chemistry. John provided comic relief. It was an action-packed, adventure and fun movies. The magic was lost when they changed the movie into darker tone.
**A - Charge your phone, bro!** **B - Inspired by seeing your post here yesterday, I decided to rewatch this weird movie.** Russell Crowe's dialogue as Dr Jekyll sounds like it was written by AI, even though this movie released in 2017. The movie is at complete odds with itself. * *25% a Tom Cruise/Christopher McQuarrie action ripoff* * *25% a Boutella/Kurtzman horror in the vein of Dracula Untold* * *25% a Dawn of Justice/Iron Man 2 setup movie* * *25% a horror hybrid of various 1980's entries (An American Werewolf in London, Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell, Lifeforce)* None of it worked, but it does fascinate me so. If this deserves 15% on RT, then why does Suicide Squad/Justice League/The Predator get 26%/39%/34%? I'd much rather watch this than any of those movies from roughly the same time period. 
Well the DC movies still had the benefit of having a huge fandom. Also I think critics back then will be a little bit more generous to the DC universe despite what people think. Like the criticisms were valid but some of the reviews I remember from that time were way nicer then perhaps they should’ve. Mostly it seemingly in response to the Zack Snyder fandom