We could have received another popular cinematic universe if Universal had been successful in kickstarting the Dark Universe. Sadly, 2017’s The Mummy, which was supposed to kickstart the universe involving the classic Universal monsters failed hard and the plans were scrapped. However, the failure was taken very positively by The Mummy director Alex Kurtzman.
Alex Kurtzman’s The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise, was a reboot of the classic Mummy franchise and featured a unique take. It was very different from the iconic Brendan Fraser movies most audiences were familiar with. The critics and the audiences bashed the film for several weak points. Despite being such a massive mess, Kurtzman stated that the film taught him a lot.
What does Alex Kurtzman feel about The Mummy?
The concept of shared cinematic universes has been highly popular in pop culture after the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the MonsterVerse. Universal also planned to hop into the trend with their classic monster films. They even signed some of the major names from the industry like Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, Russell Crowe, and Javier Bardem to start the failed universe.
In The Playlist’s Bingeworthy podcast, Alex Kurtzman shared that he believes our failures can teach far more than our successes. He added that even though The Mummy was the biggest failure of his life, it also taught him numerous priceless lessons. He emphasized that he learned about several new aspects of directing because of the $409 million grosser (via The Numbers).
“There are about a million things I regret about it, but it also gave me so many gifts that are inexpressibly beautiful. I didn’t become a director until I made that movie, and it wasn’t because it was well directed – it was because it wasn’t. I would not have understood many of the things that I now understand about what it means to be a director had I not gone through that experience.”
Following The Mummy, Alex Kurtzman did not direct a major feature film. Besides creating some Star Trek shows, he directed a Showtime series, The Man Who Fell to Earth. The latter generated a decent response on Rotten Tomatoes with an 87% critics score and a 78% audience rating.
The 50-year-old suggested that the Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe starrer transformed him as a person and as a filmmaker.
How did The Mummy change Alex Kurtzman as a person?
According to ScreenRant, Universal did not have a uniform and coherent plan, to begin with- “they went around in a lot of different directions about how they wanted to use their dark universe, all those old movies”. Alex Kurtzman described the experience as “brutal” but added that the mistakes he made during the film played a major role in making him a tougher person and a better filmmaker.
“And as brutal as it was, in many ways, and as many cooks in the kitchen as there were, I am very grateful for the opportunity to make those mistakes because it rebuilt me into a tougher person and it also rebuilt me into a clearer filmmaker.”
Kurtzman went on to address his experience in the film as a “real gift” because it also taught him to speak for himself- “I will literally not proceed when I feel that feeling. It’s not worth it to me.”
The People Like Us director said that most of the time, history shows us how people who have achieved amazing feats experienced major failures in their lives. This helps Alex Kurtzman to see The Mummy as more than a mere failure, which also helped his life and career.
The Mummy (2017) can be rented on Apple TV+.
