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Early 'The Mummy' reviews, "Dark Universe is dead on arrival"
- Thread starter LordOfLore
- Start date
tearsintherain
Member
Whats crazy is even with the terrible reviews this might be the highest box office movie for Tom Cruise to date, when you factor in world wide box office. They are predicting $160-177m WW, and I guess his previous highest was one of the Mission Impossibles at $120m?
That just seems nuts, first that global audiences are going to see this and second that he hasn't had a bigger movie.
http://deadline.com/2017/06/tom-cru...obal-box-office-opening-of-career-1202109289/
Still, domestic should be pretty mediocre. I am curious if Universal will still try to keep going.
That just seems nuts, first that global audiences are going to see this and second that he hasn't had a bigger movie.
http://deadline.com/2017/06/tom-cru...obal-box-office-opening-of-career-1202109289/
Still, domestic should be pretty mediocre. I am curious if Universal will still try to keep going.
I actually liked Dracula too
Also any word on if the Cruise = Van Hellsing stuff has any credence?
Inceptional
Member
It's great, but everybody thought it was just another generic action movie until they saw it on home video or HBO, just like Jack Reacher and Oblivion.
EatinOlives
Member
Wait, Dracula Untold was supposed to be part of this universe as well?
Lol...
Lol...
Dracula Untold tanked, but until it did it was supposed to be the start of the Dark Universe. I suspect that The Mummy will suffer a similar fate. Maybe they will continue on with Russel Crowe heading up some supernatural investigation agency, but this will be the first and last time we see this incarnation of The Mummy.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
This seemed pretty obvious from the trailers.
They should have gone pulp like the '99 remake
They should have gone pulp like the '99 remake
Jack Reacher and Oblivion aren't action movies
Robot Pants
Member
GEE
HOW SHOCKING!!
Make Dredd 2 already, you buncha bozos.
HOW SHOCKING!!
Make Dredd 2 already, you buncha bozos.
kittoo
Cretinously credulous
Pretty much. Way to pillage a perfectly good franchise
Shit I owe a friend $5 now
In the reviews? Yeah. Or are you asking to be spoiled? Well you can guess what happens based on the trailers if you watched movies before. In particular that one trailer which spoils the ever loving heck out of the movie.
That theory never made sense for multiple reasons
I don't understand why this keeps happening in RT related threads, please stop using the RT % as if it was a quality score.
It's a ratio of likes vs dislikes, it's entirely possible the folks in that 57% band might all think it's a 10 out of 10 movie for all that it matters.
Poimandres
Member
EatinOlives
Member
I mean when I saw it I didn't think Dracula was the worst movie ever (even though that ending was...something else...), but if anyone had told me that was supposed to be the start of a "cinematic universe" I would've laughed in their face. It's just random B-movie, where are all these lofty ambitions of multi-movie universes coming from?
Beren the Empty-Handed
Member
Everyone started drooling when they saw the Avengers money Marvel started raking in.
Did every exec forget that the Marvel movies are based on a pretty deep library of already established stories? You can't just pull a cinematic universe out of your ass.
Beren the Empty-Handed
Member
You're making the grave mistake of assuming that anybody put more thought into it than "make lots of money and grab all the headlines."
Well its not like a movie containing Batman and Superman would lack stories to rely on and we all know how that ended.
And its not like the mummy and all the others lack the lore. Universal just lacks talent. And vision. And confidence.
That's not really the problem here. That 'deep library of established stories' didn't make the MCU a success. What did was that they took their time establishing every seperate character with films that only very broadly connected to the overarching story before mashing them together in The Avengers. Something parties like DC and Universal seem to forget.
At least DC attempted and Superheroes were big and involved characters like Batman who can make money easily
who really cares for the monsters here
LordOfLore
Banned
Fell further. 25% now.
Hi!
Once again, the monsters had their own universe decades ago. Marvel didn't invent it. Shit, King Kong and Godzilla crossed over.
Quality aside, no one is doing anything wrong making these big universes.
Toho had indeed their own proto-cinematic universe (and yes, there was narrative carried forward), but you are thinking about the wrong King Kong. The Toho Crossover only shares the setting (Kong starts swimming from Skull Island) and character, its otherweise not related to the original Kong.
You lost me after Toto.
Congralutations
i should clarify i meant general audience because at least Godzilla and King kong has spectacle
Blargonaut
Banned
WRONG SIDE OF THE RIVERRRR
still got me sweating for decades
"And from there begins what is basically a two hour film where an increasingly beautiful woman cannot stop pursuing Tom Cruise, and thats just the tip of the iceberg on the ego stroke of its star."
...
"The few times we arent dealing with orations about the 'new world of evil', were treated to awful, cringe inducing romantic overtures between Morton and Halsey, and let me tell you, Wallis has romantic chemistry with Cruise that registers somewhere around unfamiliar coworker. This is supposed to be the central emotional hook of the story."
#NotMyMummyCouple
Remember the chemistry between Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz?
*swoon*
still got me sweating for decades
DC is IMO the prime example of a movie studio doing the Cinematic Universe stuff completely backwards. They started out okay with a solo Superman film exploring how he got there and who he is, but completely screwed it up when they immdiately followed that up with a Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman ensemble film. Had they done it right, there would've been at leat a solo Batman and preferably a solo Wonder Woman film first and then Batman vs. Superman. Then they didn't have to spend half the film setting up Batman and Wonder Woman. And they're doing it again with Justice League with Cyborg, Flash and Aquaman, three characters who, before Justice League, had no more than one minute screen time each.
Just imagine if Marvel had followed up Iron Man directly with The Avengers and released The First Avenger, The Incredible Hulk and Thor after that. It wouldn't have worked at all.
And that's not even getting started on Suicide Squad, where DC made the insane decision to start off with an ensemble film. How the hell does that make any sense?
The classic monster like Frankenstein, the Wolf Man (or call it Werwolf) or Dracula, etc will always have an audience. I think the audience is actually bigger then Godzilla in the west, it just hast to me done well.
Tl;Dr: King Kong Vs Godzilla wasnt something resembling a Cinematic Universe, but Toho really showed elements in their Kaijus like narrative carrying forward, etc that is nowadays indeed a trademark of a Cinematic Universe.
Is it big enough though considering how Wolf Man flopped few years ago though apparently Dracula made money so who knows
Tbf it may have something to do with MOS under performing and having a suicide squad in order to give you a glimpse to the universe could work
too bad they suck
Rogue Nation would've opened >$200m if it had China at the same release date (theoretically).
GeorgioCostanzaX
Member
You'd think studios would have learned after their shitty attempts to buy classic children's fiction in an effort to re-create the Harry Potter film's success flopped. Then again...Disney even sucked at that pre-Marvel acquisition with The Chronicles of Narnia and John Carter...not bad films but not what they needed.
Warner might have saved itself with Wonder Woman (more decent BVS and SS directors cuts notwithstanding) so who knows. Hope WW gets to be #1 for another week!
I haven't seen this film and probably won't until it's on Netflix but let me tell you how they should've made this if they wanted a Marvel-esque cinematic universe:
'Tom Cruise plays a handsome ancient mummy who wakes up in strange modern world, moves to New York, finds love, and fights other more evil monsters with his amazing Mummy Powers. It's like Enchanted meets Spíder-Man!'
'Tom Cruise plays a handsome ancient mummy who wakes up in strange modern world, moves to New York, finds love, and fights other more evil monsters with his amazing Mummy Powers. It's like Enchanted meets Spíder-Man!'
DiipuSurotu
Banned
Any chance they can remove this film from the cinematic universe and declare Dracula Untold is the real start of it after all?
It probably would have been better if they made Dracula an agent of Dr. Jekyll's organization.
mariachi507
Member
Did anyone expect different with Kurtzman at the helm?
The idea of a blockbuster sized universe featuring the Universal Monsters just doesn't make that much sense to me. Taking the action adventure route with the Mummy admittedly worked years back, but it strayed about as far as possible from the original Karloff film which isn't very good to begin with.
The acclaimed entries from the Universal Monsters franchise are acclaimed for being great gothic horror films. It wasn't even until they lost their mystique's and became jokes that Universal started having multiple monster's in the same movie. Even Karloff had abandoned the role of the monster because he saw the writing on the wall. I'm not sure how to throw all of these monsters in one movie and have it not become a big cheesefest. I'd much rather see remakes of these of these movies that stayed a little closer to their horror roots.
I was excited when Guillermo Del Toro was looking at a Frankenstein remake years ago since I expected him to be faithful to the Karloff films. It didn't happen though and I'm not as big on Del Toro nowadays. However, remakes of The Invisible Man and The Creature from the Black Lagoon should be no brainers and could stick to their original visions and work in today's cinema landscape.
The idea of a blockbuster sized universe featuring the Universal Monsters just doesn't make that much sense to me. Taking the action adventure route with the Mummy admittedly worked years back, but it strayed about as far as possible from the original Karloff film which isn't very good to begin with.
The acclaimed entries from the Universal Monsters franchise are acclaimed for being great gothic horror films. It wasn't even until they lost their mystique's and became jokes that Universal started having multiple monster's in the same movie. Even Karloff had abandoned the role of the monster because he saw the writing on the wall. I'm not sure how to throw all of these monsters in one movie and have it not become a big cheesefest. I'd much rather see remakes of these of these movies that stayed a little closer to their horror roots.
I was excited when Guillermo Del Toro was looking at a Frankenstein remake years ago since I expected him to be faithful to the Karloff films. It didn't happen though and I'm not as big on Del Toro nowadays. However, remakes of The Invisible Man and The Creature from the Black Lagoon should be no brainers and could stick to their original visions and work in today's cinema landscape.
What did he mean by this?
Member
Why do people always go into lengthy explanations about irrelevant stuff to rationalize flicks with bad scripts and poor direction?
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Universal had a cinematic universe in the 40's/50's/60's that they created in an ad-hoc fashion. There's no reason that it couldn't work again, as long as they can get out a popular film. It doesn't even have to be good, just popular enough to keep the universe going as they adapt to audience and critic reactions.
Dracula, Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, Wolfman, various Mummy movies etc have mountains of historically popular stories to pull from too. Plenty of adaptations, remakes etc of each property have been done and some of them were well received. The problem is in the execution of this specific movie, not the idea of the universe at all.