‘The Mummy’ Director Calls the Tom Cruise Box Office Bomb ‘Brutal’
thewrap.comconversation on the “Bingeworthy” podcast, Kurtzman — who is now helming Showtime’s sci-fi series “The Man Who Fell to Earth” — reflected on the critical and commercial disaster, which was originally set to launch Universal’s cinematic Dark Universe.
While he is set to produce a slew of films — including “Now You See Me 3,” “Van Helsing” and several untitled classic projects about Dracula, Frankenstein and the Hunchback of Notre Dame — he hasn’t directed a feature since 2017.“I tend to subscribe to the point of view that you learn nothing from your successes, and you learn everything from your failures,” Kurtzman said. “And that was probably the biggest failure of my life, both personally and professionally.
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.”Although Kurtzman doesn’t go into deal about why it was “brutal” or why he has labeled it “probably the biggest failure of my life,” he has good reason to feel that way.
In the US, it faced a disappointing opening of $32.2 million on a $160 million budget, forcing Universal to rely on overseas markets to help push it into the black.
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