Just recently, actor Brendan Fraser offered up his thoughts on why 2017’s The Mummy failed to garner both critical and commercial success. The movie, starring Tom Cruise and Sofia Boutella, was meant to serve as the jumping off point for Universal Pictures’ ‘Dark Universe’, which would effectively link together multiple projects based on the classic ‘Universal Monster’ movies. After The Mummy gained overwhelming negative reception from critics and consumers alike — sitting at an appalling 15% critic score and 35% audience score respectively on Rotten Tomatoes — Universal Pictures abandoned its ambitions for an interconnected cinematic universe.
When prompted for his thoughts on the movie, Fraser stated the following (courtesy of Variety):
“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 Mummy’ should be a thrill ride, but not terrifying and scary.”
Fraser, of course, starred in three of his own movies based on the long-running Mummy franchise. Released between 1999 and 2008, these gained significantly more praise from audiences for their focus on adventure over horror, though it's safe to say 2008’s Tomb of the Dragon Emperor failed to match the success of the prior two movies. How well these stand up in 2022 is certainly up for debate — although the first one, in particular, is generally held up as a swashbuckling genre classic these days — but there’s no doubt that Fraser was correct in his assessment that the 2017 reboot lacked a sense of fun.
We can’t completely write off 2017’s The Mummy though, for its existence led to the development of one of the greatest licensed games of all time, The Mummy Demastered, which just so happens to be celebrating its fifth anniversary today. Created by WayForward Technologies — known for its previous work on the Shantae franchise — we can't think of a better game that's come from a lesser 'source' than The Mummy Demastered.
It's a standalone game that takes place concurrently with the events of the movie. You play as a soldier who works for the Prodigium Organisation, tasked with locating and taking down Princess Ahmanet, the titular ‘Mummy’ character.