Tom Cruise is the biggest movie star in the world. The actor is credited for saving Hollywood by Steven Spielberg thanks to Top Gun 2 which grossed $1.4 billion globally. With Mission Impossible 7 coming soon, the star status of the actor is going to explode again. But not every film by the actor has tasted success.
One of the biggest examples of this is The Mummy. The film starring Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, and more in lead roles was originally intended to start the Dark Universe, but it flopped. As a result, we never got to see actors like Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe work together again even though the actors wanted to.
Russell Crowe Remembers His First Meeting With Tom Cruise
In an interview with Fairfax Media (via The Sydney Morning Herald), Russell Crowe revealed how he first met Tom Cruise. The Man of Steel actor stated that he was surprised that Cruise was the one who was actually asking all the questions after meeting him. He said:
“We’ve known each other since 1992. We met… at a barbecue at Naomi Watts’ house, and Nicole Kidman, who was Tom’s wife at the time, introduced me… The most amazing thing was that I was talking to, at the time, the biggest movie star in the world, and he had been introduced to my films by his wife, so he was asking me questions, not the other way around.”
The actor also said that working on The Mummy was the right time to collaborate with the Top Gun star. Crowe said:
“It was a pretty amazing experience and we have been friends ever since. When [The Mummy] came up, it felt like the right one.”
Tom Cruise agreed and said that he couldn’t believe they hadn’t worked together before, but was glad that the collaboration was finally happening. He said:
“I’ve known him for 100 years and when we were standing on set, I was like, ‘I cannot believe that we haven’t done this before.’ When he said he would play Doctor Jekyll I was so excited to see what he would do with that character and have the opportunity to finally work with him.”
However, the team-up couldn’t be extended to more films because the planned Dark Universe was shelved after The Mummy grossed only $417 million worldwide.
Reportedly, thanks to its high production plus marketing budget, it wasn’t able to ultimately turn out a profit for the studio. But the original The Mummy star, Brendan Fraser, thinks there’s another reason.
Brendan Fraser Revealed Why Tom Cruise’s The Mummy Failed To Make A Mark
Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz captivated audiences in The Mummy franchise. The first three Mummy films grossed over $1.2 billion globally. When Fraser was asked why his films worked while superstar Tom Cruise’s didn’t, he said it was because Cruise and his team played it too straight.
In an interview with Variety, he said:
“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 film) should be a thrill ride, but not terrifying and scary.”
As for whether he would be open to star in another Mummy movie, Fraser said he was always open to the idea if the makers could come up with a good plot. While fans would love to see the star in such a film again, it remains to be seen if that happens or not.
The Mummy (2017) is available on Netflix and The Mummy (1999) is available on Amazon Prime Video.
Source: Variety and Sydney Morning
