Tom Cruise’s ‘The Mummy’ was expected to launch Universal’s new Dark Monster-verse, but now it looks like the multi-franchise universe may be dead entirely.
Alex Kurtzman’s reboot of The Mummy was… well, hoo boy. It was not well received by audiences or critics upon its release earlier this year, and was not a great start to Universal’s monster reboot franchise Dark Universe. Its reception also doesn’t bode well for Kurtzman, who is currently unsure about his future in the franchise.
Say you’re filmmaker Alex Kurtzman. To the outside observer, it would appear you have it all: a multi-picture deal with Universal to spearhead their Dark Universe initiative, more money than God, probably a bunch of boats, Tom Cruise’s cell phone number. And yet you’re driven mad by the one thing you can’t seem to get, which is the respect of the critics. Like pretty much everything you’ve ever done, the reviews have been downright vitriolic (and to make matters worse, your latest film The Mummy has not been the cash factory Universal was hoping for, now poised to lose the studio a cool $95 million even after a handsome global gross), souring your day even as you fail upwards into the next multi-million-dollar project.
Most cinephiles have heard that old Gene Siskel chestnut about a movie needing to be more interesting than a dinner table conversation between its stars. I would like to add the following qualifier to that adage: any Tom Cruise movie should be more interesting than a behind-the-scenes interview on Cruise performing some of the film’s biggest stunts. Cruise’s attention to detail for action sequences is legendary, and while I may not have enjoyed The Mummy, I’ve honestly had a blast watching Cruise talk about the filmmaking process in every video that Universal Pictures has released.
Critics were split on whether The Mummy was the worst film of Tom Cruise’s career. According to Rotten Tomatoes, it’s one of the two worst reviewed Cruise films, with a pitiful 16 percent approval rating. The only previous Cruise effort with a crappier RT score is Cocktail, which has a lowly 5 percent (although it’s worth noting Rotten Tomatoes did not exist when that film was released, and its sampling of reviews that are available online in 2017 may not be complete or entirely accurate representation of all the reviews it got in 1988.)
Have you ever seen those movie ads on TV filled with gushing quotes from critics and thought to yourself, “I saw that movie; it was terrible. Where did they find these positive reviews?” If you have, you’re not alone — and you’re going to love ScreenCrush’s series, Critics Are Raving!, which balances the cinematic scales with trailers full of slightly more accurate (and slightly more negative) lines from reviews. Real critics. Real quotes. Really bad movies. That’s what’s Critics Are Raving! is all about.
If you only look at the surface numbers, this was a pretty predictable week at the box office. Wonder Woman did well, The Mummy did not, and everything else shook out accordingly. That being said, there’s some pretty interesting narratives emerging in the how and why of this weekend’s box office report. Let’s take a look at the rankings as of Sunday afternoon and dive into some of the specifics:
Tom Cruise’s The Mummy is the beginning of a new Dark Universe for Universal Studios, and as such is tasked with connecting this film to a bunch of other ones in the franchise. The Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Bride of Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, and a bunch of others will soon be hitting the big screen, all under the Dark Universe umbrella. So, what fits them all together? The plot device — I mean, the Prodigium, of course.