Brendan Fraser became a star when “The Mummy” hit theaters in 1999 and spawned a beloved trilogy, which was rebooted without him in 2017 to disastrous results. Fortunately for fans, Fraser is open to reprising his role — and he has an idea of why the Tom Cruise-helmed reboot flopped.
“It is hard to make that movie,” Fraser told Variety in an interview published Tuesday. “The ingredient that we had going for our Mummy, which I didn’t see in [Cruise’s] 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 continued. “I know how difficult it is to pull it off. I tried to do it three times.”
Fraser vanished from Hollywood after leading popular films like “George of the Jungle” and “Bedazzled.” In 2018, he said he had been blackballed for alleging Philip Berk, a former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, groped him in 2003. (Berk denied the allegation, then later wrote in his memoir that he pinched Fraser in the backside as a joke, according to People.)
“His left hand reaches around, grabs my ass cheek, and one of his fingers touches me in the taint,” Fraser told GQ. “I felt ill. I felt like a little kid. I felt like there was a ball in my throat. I thought I was going to cry.”
Fraser is now in the midst of a full-blown comeback and earning acclaim for his role in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale” as a 600-pound man fighting for redemption. The role has been criticized for its negative depiction of fat people and the fact that Fraser wore a fat suit. He defended his performance this week.
Whether Fraser’s onscreen redemption will include a reprisal of his “Mummy” role is unclear — but certainly possible.
“I don’t know how it would work,” Fraser told Variety. “But I’d be open to it if someone came up with the right conceit.”
The family-friendly “Mummy” trilogy saw Fraser depict an endearing swashbuckler named Rick O’Connell. It grossed more than $450 million worldwide.
Stephen Sommers, who directed the first two films, told Variety he cast Fraser for a very specific reason.
“He could throw a punch and take a punch and he had a great sense of humor,” Sommers said. “You really like the guy. He never comes across as cocky or arrogant.”
Alex Kurtzman, who directed the 2017 reboot, told The Playlist’s “Bingeworthy” podcast in April the film was the “biggest failure” of his career.
Whether it bombed because of Fraser’s absence is unclear, but there’s really only one way to find out: Fraser’s return.