Original The Mummy Director Gets Candid on Tom Cruise's Reboot: 'I Was Insulted'

The best period in recent cinema history? Back when Brendan Fraser was one of the biggest stars, without a doubt. There’s something special about this man’s action movies, and even decades later, rewatching them feels like returning home after a long trip to the cold outside world. Among Fraser’s certified classics, The Mummy is probably the most prominent — thanks to director Stephen Sommers, in particular.

For Sommers, those, too, were the good old days, but there’s one chapter of The Mummy’s story he hates — Alex Kurtzman’s 2017 remake with Tom Cruise. Why?

The Mummy Remake Disrespected Its Origins

Typically, when a new creator takes over someone else’s franchise, they reach out to them. There are many reasons to do so: to receive their blessing or insights, to share their vision, to keep them in the loop, or just out of common courtesy… No matter what’s the “official” reason behind that, the newcomers should always call, at least.

But no one from the crew of the 2017 The Mummy remake reached out to Sommers.

“I was kind of insulted because the writers and director of that Tom Cruise [remake], no one ever contacted me. I contact people if I was going to take over somebody’s thing. <...> I had nothing to do with the Tom Cruise one. They never contacted me or called me. I was doing other things, and it’s not like I sat crying… I just think it’s common courtesy,” the director shared with THR.

The Mummy Remake Failed Miserably

You’d think that getting Tom Cruise to play the lead part in a remake of a beloved action franchise is a recipe for success — but for 2017’s The Mummy, that didn’t work out. The movie performed miserably, having measly 15 and 35% Critic and Audience Scores on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively, and 5.4/10 on IMDb.

Meanwhile, the 1999 original The Mummy with Brendan Fraser is still going strong with 62 and 75% on Rotten Tomatoes and 7.1/10 on IMDb. Perhaps, Alex Kurtzman’s remake would have had a better chance if he gave the courtesy call to Stephen Sommers and asked for the OG director’s advice… But he didn’t.

Source: THR