Brendan Fraser is ready to go on another mummified adventure as Rick O’Connell.
In an interview with Variety, Fraser admitted that he would be open to starring in another Mummy film:
“I don’t know how it would work. But I’d be open to it if someone came up with the right conceit.”
The actor first played adventurer Rick O’Connell in 1999’s The Mummy before returning as the character for two sequels: 2001’s The Mummy Returns and 2008’s The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.
A fourth film, rumored to be titled The Mummy: Rise of the Aztec, was in development between 2008 and 2012 but was canceled in favor of rebooting the franchise. After five years, Universal‘s The Mummy reboot was released in theaters and immediately flopped. Not even the star power of Tom Cruise was enough to stop the bleeding. The 2017 reboot was so bad that it outright killed Universal’s plans for the Dark Universe, an action-driven reimagining of the Universal Monsters franchise.
Fraser also told Variety in that same interview why he believed Cruise’s Mummy film failed. Here’s the quote:
“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. I know how difficult it is to pull it off. I tried to do it three times.”
After a lengthy hiatus from Hollywood, Fraser’s career is back and burning brighter than ever. The actor is currently receiving some of the best reviews of his career for his starring role in The Whale, an upcoming psychological drama film from A24. Many critics are already calling Fraser a lock for a Best Actor nomination at next year’s Oscars (and some have suggested that he might just win the damn award, too).
The Whale opens in theaters on December 9, 2022.
What do you think about a fourth Fraser-led Mummy film? Will you be going to the cinemas to watch The Whale in support of the Brenaissance?
