Trot About the Globe with Tom Cruise in New ‘The Mummy’ Featurette
Aside from the unceasing public scrutiny, being an A-list actor doesn’t seem so bad. You get paid obscene amounts of money, meet interesting people, and get to travel all across this green Earth in the name of work. And today, you can share in that last part with none other than professional shirtless runner Tom Cruise! Universal will unwrap The Mummy a week from this Friday, and to further stoke excitement for the launch of their new, hilariously-named Dark Universe, the studio has unveiled a video featurette in which Cruise brings the viewer on a tour of the far-flung locations where the film was shot.
Universal didn’t give director Alex Kurtzman $125 million just so he could turn some warehouse into the open desert through showbiz trickery. When you’ve got the studio budget for it, you pack your crew up and ship out to Namibia, or London, or if you really want to get adventurous, the sky. The featurette above brings the viewer through the cobblestoned streets of present-day London, in which much of the film’s action takes place, before moving them to the same Namibian flatland that gave Fury Road its dystopian hellscape. Kurtzman, never one to skimp when it comes to technical spectacle, then shows the viewer how they accomplished the zero-gravity airplane stunt first shown off in the trailer. Hint: it involves removing the element of gravity from an actual airplane, no wires necessary.
It’s a glossy commercial for the film, sure, but it’s also a nifty peek into the life of a big-name actor on a studio production. Tom Cruise is probably jet-setting off for Laos or some such place as you read this. Gaze out the nearest window and listlessly wonder why your job hasn’t paid for you to defy Newtonian physics on an airplane.