Explain Yourself: Alex Kurtzman on Why They’re Doing a Mummy Remake, Plus the Official Trailer is Here!
If you’re in the same boat as me and are wondering why this The Mummy reboot is even happening at all, filmmaker Alex Kurtzman has an answer for you. He and Roberto Orci are breathing new life into the famed monster franchise with the help of Tom Cruise and Star Trek Beyond’s Sofia Boutella, plus a script from Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and Edge of Tomorrow’s Chris McQuarrie, and Passengers and Doctor Strange scribe Jon Spaihts. We already discussed the teaser here, but you can now watch the first trailer in its entirety thanks to the video above. In an interview with Slash Film, he explained why exactly they decided to move forward with the remake.
“I felt strongly that when I would talk to people and get feedback, there was this sense of like, ‘Okay, we understand The Mummy as a title, we understand a studio wanting to make The Mummy, but why now? Why is it important? What’s going to be different about it than what came before?’ And there are a bunch of things,” he began. “First of all, no one has made a monster movie writ large. Meaning, no one has made a good monster movie–a proper, Universal Monsters monster movie– with the size and scope that I think we’re going to deliver in this movie.”
Those are hefty words from the director, but hyping one’s project is nothing new. The Walking Dead has turned that into an art-form. Still, I can’t help but think about the 1999 remake with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, which combined high-budget action with a comically fun adventure. Even Kurtzman is giving props to that film for turning the genre on its head.
“Actually, I would say that the Brendan Fraser Mummy movie was sort of the first to kind of do that, in a real way, from a studio point of view, where they put real big dollars into a movie,” he added. “But it’s different than making The Purge, you know, or something like that. So it’s just a different experience, for a very different price point.”
The 2017 incarnation centers on an ancient princess named Ahmanet (Boutella) who is awakened from her crypt and brings about a new sort of terror to humankind. Cruise stars as the main protagonist Nick Morton because who didn’t see that coming? Courtney B. Vance, Russell Crowe, Jake Johnson and Annabelle Wallis are also featured in the film. According to Kurtzman, you can expect suspense, adventure and moments of horror without it being defined as a “horror movie.”
The Mummy heads to theaters on June 9, 2017.
(via SlashFilm, image via screencap)
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