Behold the Brenaissance! As Brendan Fraser continues his amazing year after the anticipated release of The Whale, in which he is garnering a bevy of praise for his performance [and awards to boot], Variety reports that the actor recently dropped in on an unsuspecting audience of a special 35mm screening of The Mummy and The Mummy Returns at the Prince Charles Cinema in London. Fraser took the stage in full-on Rick O’Connell wardrobe as well.
Fraser is in the midst of his press tour for The Whale, and when he learned of the event, he couldn’t resist visiting a screening of the film that would be a hallmark in a lot of people’s childhood. Fraser was met with a big welcome from the audience, including a standing ovation, and addressed them, saying, “I am proud to stand before you tonight. This is a film that was made in Britain. You should know that! Even the second one, too. Be proud. Thank you for being here. We had no idea what kind of movie we were making when we shot this. We didn’t know if it was a drama or a comedy or an action or a horror picture or a romance… all the above. We had no idea until it tested in front of British audiences. Thank you for that.”
Last year, when given the inquiry of the possibility of returning to The Mummy franchise, Fraser was open to the opportunity, “I don’t know how it would work. But I’d be open to it if someone came up with the right conceit.” He would also be asked his opinion of the failed Tom Cruise reboot, which was to kick off a shared universe of Universal monster movies, “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 [Tom Cruise’s] incarnation. It was too much of a straight-ahead horror movie. The Mummy should be a thrill ride, but not terrifying and scary.”
He adds, “I know how difficult it is to pull it off. I tried to do it three times.”