Fans of Brendan Fraser’s The Mummy movies disappointed by the Tom Cruise reboot may be in luck – an Easter egg suggests Rick O’Connell, Imhotep, and co. are still canon.
Although the Dark Universe is ostensibly based on Universal’s 1930s classic monster films, the instigating creature – the resurrected Mummy – is better remembered for a previous remake. Back in 1999, Stephen Sommers delivered one of the best summer blockbusters of a disappointing decade by taking a character best known for being an easy last-minute Halloween costume and putting it in an Indiana Jones-hued action-adventure.
Fun, creepy and full of great characters, The Mummy was a massive success, leading to two direct sequels and spin-off series The Scorpion King that, despite not being great, still ran for four movies between 2002 and 2015. There were once talks of a fourth film in the main series, but they died with the emergence of the Dark Universe (and its scathing reviews). Or did they?
The Mummy 1999 Easter Egg
The Mummy 2017 is mostly very removed from what’s come before. It’s set in the modern day (the previous remake took place in the 1920s), moves the action from Egypt to England (with the instigating tomb in Iraq), and while its villain is, again, primarily motivated by using one of our heroes to resurrect an ancient force, the story goes off in a completely different direction.
But Alex Kurtzman isn’t totally ignoring the O’Connells. In the film’s second act, Tom Cruise’s Nick Morton finds himself the headquarters of Prodigum, a secret organization that collects and catalogs rare antiquities related to a variety of strange creatures. When he discovers their motives aren’t totally pure he gets in a tussle with Russell Crowe’s Dr. Jekyll (or rather his dark side) while Annabelle Wallis’ Jenny Halsey tries to find a way to break them up. When scrabbling for a weapon, she uses one of the Prodigum’s acquisitions – a golden book with a strange lock.
This is the Book of Amun-Ra, a mythological item first introduced in The Mummy ’99. It was one of two essential MacGuffins in the film along with the obsidian Book of Death; the latter was able to resurrect ancient forces, while the former sent them back to the afterlife. The golden version was seemingly lost forever in sequel The Mummy Returns when it’s dropped it into pit of scarabs in Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead.
Of course, even though the Dark Universe appearance looks to be the same prop, or at the very least a near perfect recreation, it’s more intended as a neat easter egg for long-time Mummy fans. But could it be something more? Is Kurtzman actually saying the original films happened in continuity?
Why Brendan Fraser’s Films Are In Canon
The big difference between Fraser and Cruise’s Mummy is that while the former was just a rollicking one-off summer movie (initially), the latter is the springboard to one of Universal’s biggest gambles, a shared universe that – if box office and critical failure doesn’t crush it first – will unite Morton (now a Mummy) and Jekyll with Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, the Wolf Man, the Creature from the Black Lagoon and maybe even the Phantom of the Opera and Hunchback of Notre Dame. As such the film is full of setup for the future, with easter eggs and world building galore. Is the Book of Amun-Ra part of it?
Here’s where those aforementioned differences between remake series come into play – there’s very little if anything to contradict the two Mummy films being in the same timeline, with different cursed Egyptians, tomb locations and, indeed, magic explanation, all separated by the better part of a century. To say that Fraser’s films work in Dark Universe going forward is very simple; the writers just need to make sure they don’t contradict a few simple things. To be sure, it’s not even hard to explain the Easter egg; the Book was lost, not destroyed, and as a pivotal artifact is unlikely just get left to the sands of time. If Prodigium really is as maliciously far-reaching as presented, they’re sure to have hunted it down at some point – the Imhotep incident may even be what instigated the organization.
In fact, this would be a rather nice move for other remakes to follow through on – because these are contemporary, action-based versions, it’s not too damaging to pay homage to the 1930s classics and other efforts by making them officially in-continuity. Imagine Frankenstein saying he’s following work of an ancestor or the Invisible Man being a hereditary affliction. Heck, while the film itself is despised, people would surely be pretty excited to have Hugh Jackman’s Van Helsing pop up (if The Mummy hasn’t already introduced another version of the character). Ironically, the only film that couldn’t work in this vein due to the character’s immortality is Dracula Untold, once intended to be Dark Universe’s progenitor.
Alex Kurtzman has actually discussed the Easter egg with Digital Spy and while admitting it is primarily just a wink, the director said its ambiguity leading to a discussion such as this is intentional:
“You have to pay homage and tribute to everything that came before. I have nothing but respect for all the films that have been made, and the filmmakers who’ve made them. To deny their existence in any way, I think would have been incredibly rude. So, all of those films are part of the history of the Universal monsters, and as such I thought, rather than say it’s not part of the canon, let’s say, ‘No, it is part of the canon; we’re just taking it somewhere new’.”
When pressed, Kurtzman even jokingly said “Sure! Why not? You’re free to quote that.” Of course, this is all a bit cheap – it’s tying in beloved movies with no purpose beyond appeasing fans – but then who actually expected O’Connell to turn up?
Even if it is just a bit of fun, there’s no avoiding what it means: yes, the Brendan Fraser movies are canon. Now if only we could replace the Tom Cruise version with them…
When Wonder Woman arrived in Batman V Superman, fans were dying to know what caused her to spend a full century hiding from the world – a question that her origin movie in World War I promised to do. The film succeeded in showing why Wonder Woman is a better hero than Batman or Superman as the DCEU heads towards Justice League, but with Wonder Woman itself ending on something of an inspiring, victorious ending… fans are starting to wonder if her claim in BvS is a plot hole unaddressed. If Wonder Woman managed to end the war and defeat her enemy, why did she turn her back on mankind for the next hundred years?
It’s a question more and more fans and critics are asking, with even director Patty Jenkins explaining Diana’s words, from her point of view. Still, the movies themselves are what most fans will be seeing, and using to answer this question. Unfortunately, the addition of Wonder Woman’s story only makes BvS better if the audience remembers to reconsider what they used to believe. In this case, Diana’s words – and her reason for being in the movie at all – may have changed in light of her very own movie.
We’re here to help fans understand, and answer the question of Why Wonder Woman ‘Walks Away’ From Mankind After WWI.
What Diana Said vs. How Fans Understood It
To get to the bottom of whether Diana’s pre-BvS story is even a plot hole, we need to go back and pay close attention not to what fans took away or interpreted from her words in Dawn of Justice, but the words themselves. As she and Bruce Wayne stood a distance from Clark Kent’s grave, she let her latest ally know that she was less than optimistic about his mission to unite metahumans in one team. The line is famous now, but here it is, in case anyone’s memory is a little foggy:
“A hundred years ago I walked away from mankind; from a century of horrors. Men made a world where standing together is impossible.”
Combining her claim of “walking away from mankind” a century earlier with the photo of her in World War I, fans inferred that whatever happened during World War I soured her on mankind to the point of abandoning them to their fate. With the majority of the movie seeing Diana tracking down the photograph proving her existence and immortality, and resisting any urge to join Batman or Superman, it seemed safe to assume that was how she had spent the previous century.
She may not have been able to physically leave the world of mankind, meaning she had “walked away from mankind” in the sense that she had lived a secret life, hiding her powers, having had whatever heroic urges brought her into WWI quelled by a brutal war that led into “a century of horrors.” Again, that’s how audiences interpreted the words, with only her appearance in Batman V Superman to inform them. But that’s not the case anymore.
Diana Hasn’t Been ‘Hiding’ – And That’s Important
It should come as no surprise that seeing Wonder Woman only improves Batman V Superman – even aside from the surprisingly detailed Diana story running through the movie. Mainly, it’s the obvious benefits of seeing how Diana turned from a wide-eyed, optimistic crusader for worldly protection into the wiser, stoic, more guarded woman we see in the modern DCEU. But in terms of actual, material links between Dawn of Justice and Wonder Woman, there is none more obvious or misunderstood than the daguerreotype photograph taken of Diana, Steve Trevor, and their band of brothers. The photo that Diana was chasing down in the previous movie, for what fans could only assume was the sake of secrecy and privacy, having spent a century avoiding detection.
But in Wonder Woman, it’s suggested that Diana’s entire motivation may have been misunderstood. It turns out Diana needed Steve Trevor in whatever form she could get, even if it meant a photograph she had possibly never seen (considering what happens to the village shortly after). When Bruce sends her the original, she replies to him with an email, thanking her ally for “bringing him back to me.” (Editor’s note: we assume she means Steve, and not director Zack Snyder’s cameo in the photo.)
In this new light, some of the original assumptions have to be questioned. After all, Diana is happily employed at The Louvre in Paris, implying her attempts to ‘hide’ from the world may actually be limited to ‘keeping people from knowing I’m an immortal demigoddess.’ So if Diana is making friends, remembering loved ones, and going to work like the rest of humanity, what did her claim of “walking away from mankind” after WWI mean? And why was she resisting the urge to jump into combat alongside two American superheroes?
Why Diana (Really) Stopped Being a Superhero
With no horrifying defeat, no disillusionment unresolved, and defeating her enemy, Ares, with her belief in the power of love… why did Diana walk away from mankind? Why, if she killed Ares, did war continue? Why did World War II happen? And why didn’t she show up to stop it? These are the question being understandably thrown around by viewers, and the ones that some outlets and critics are actually pointing to as DCEU plot holes, mistakes, or continuity errors. That’s far from the truth, and viewers need only to remind themselves of why Diana left Themyscira in the first place to understand the reality.
She explains to Steve and her mother, just as it was explained to her, that the Amazons exist to defeat Ares. She believes what she was taught: that Zeus created Man to be good, and Ares corrupted them into doing terrible things. Zeus created the Amazons to pull mankind back from the corruption of Ares. After the death of the gods, Zeus concealed the Amazons so that they could return to defeat Ares once and for all, should he arrive to corrupt and destroy mankind once more.
He did. So Diana left Themyscira to make good on the Amazons’ duty. She did. At which point… well, her job was more or less done, and the Amazons’ duty fulfilled. Seeing her defeat Ares by claiming she “believes in love” and in the goodness of mankind may lead the audience to assume she’s accepted the mantle of their protector, but she’s neither a human nor a ‘superhero.’ She’s saying it in opposition to Ares, who believes mankind is evil at heart and therefore should be utterly erased from the Earth. Wonder Woman believes that mankind shouldn’t be written off, or at least that Ares is seeing only the worst of them – as she has, as well.
So she follows the destiny and duty of her people, and rids mankind of the corruption of Ares. With her job done, and no home to go back to… Diana began to live a life of her own, apparently keeping her secrets and powers to herself. Remember: there were no other superheroes at the time, and as far as we know, no other supernatural or superhuman threats ever came to humans for decades. She simply stepped back, and let mankind continue on as it chose to.
Ares revealed just how little pushing or seduction humans needed to commit horrors while wrapped in the Lasso of Truth, so Diana knows that the story she was fed as a child isn’t entirely true. Men are good. Men are evil. But taking on the task of overseeing the planet on a micromanaging scale wasn’t what Diana planned, nor was it ever her duty (or right, to be honest). And the century that followed clearly convinced her that Ares saw at least some of the truth of mankind.
Why It Doesn’t Really Matter
In the end, the distinction here is only a ‘plot hole’ or ‘inconsistency’ if viewers limit their interpretation to explicitly what is shown on screen. Even Wonder Woman‘s director has denied a continuity error, explaining that ‘turning away from mankind’ just as likely means Diana realized humanity needed to save itself, or that she couldn’t save everybody from the reality of mankind.
The audience is given enough in her own film, with Queen Hippolyta telling Diana that men are easily corrupted, and that they do not deserve the Amazons’ protection. Assuming Diana took some time off after fulfilling her people’s ancient duty, she would see World War II started by men all on their own – a war that she neither could have, nor was duty-bound to prevent, fight, or win. We don’t know that Diana stopped being a hero in some form or another, but having seen what Ares caused by meddling with humans, we’re willing to assume she decided never to follow in his footsteps. A demigoddess exercising her will over people was the opposite of what she was raised to be.
A Wonder Woman movie sequel could shed some light on how Diana spent the intervening years, and her origin movie’s ending certainly suggests that Superman’s death has stirred something inside of her. But her words to Bruce matter more to the future of the DCEU than the past. She hasn’t walked with mankind for a century, but the time may be coming when she needs to defend it from an enemy far greater than the God of War – the God of Apokolips.
The latest DC Extended Universe entry, Wonder Woman, is a triumph for female characters in movies, while this weekend’s big release, The Mummy, undermines any attempt at progress with its final twist. There are a few similarities between Wonder Woman and The Mummy. Even though their source material is vastly different – one comes from the pages of comics, the other is inspired by a 1932 horror movie – both films are positioned as summer blockbusters, and action/adventure films in which their lead characters discover the heroes within themselves. In a larger sense, however, both movies hit theaters with a great deal of pressure on them to succeed for the sake of their respective cinematic universes.
In the case of Wonder Wonder, Patty Jenkins’ DCEU installment arrived on the heels of back-to-back films that received largely negative critical reviews and mixed reactions among moviegoers (those films being Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad). As such, many hoped Wonder Woman would be the first DCEU entry that was generally well received by critics and moviegoers alike – which, considering reviews of Wonder Woman and the film’s massive box office, it was. Meanwhile, The Mummy is tasked with being the official launchpad for Universal Studio’s Dark Universe – the shared cinematic world of classic movie monsters that the studio has been planning for years. The Dark Universe was initially thought to kick off with Dracula Untold in 2014, but that film’s negative reception and poor box office made it a non-starter – though Alex Kurtzman’s update on the classic monster isn’t faring much better in terms of reviews for The Mummy.
Of course, there are also a great deal of differences between Wonder Woman and The Mummy, particularly in the way the films portray and treat their female characters. This won’t be a discussion of whether Wonder Woman or The Mummy are themselves feminist films, since labeling any one piece of art as feminist is a tricky business, but an in-depth look at the treatment of the films’ characters (and readers can draw their own conclusions from there). Additionally, though this close of a look at The Mummy’s female characters may not have arisen if it had debuted earlier in the summer movie schedule, in light of the discussion around women in Hollywood thanks to the success of Wonder Woman, a closer look at how female characters are portrayed in a typical summer blockbuster is warranted.
Much has been said about Wonder Woman’s strong female hero – which is to say, Gal Gadot’s Diana Prince is a well-written, three-dimensional superhero with a notable journey from a naive warrior to the more educated protector of mankind. The film’s depiction of Themyscira and the race of all-women Amazonian warriors has been praised for depicting the strength of women. Further, Wonder Woman confronts sexism both within the world in which the film is set and Hollywood as a whole. Even Wonder Woman’s, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), flips the script on the damsel in distress trope by giving him his own character arc that is tied directly to Diana’s.
To be clear, however, Wonder Woman is an outlier in Hollywood. Data scientist Amber Thomas found that women only spoke 27 percent of the words in the top 10 grossing films of 2016, which included superhero tentpoles like Captain America: Civil War,Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Suicide Squad. Behind the camera, 2016 also saw a two percent decline in the number of female filmmakers, with only 7 percent of directors in 2016 being women, according to San Diego State’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film as reported by THR. Women fared better when it came to being screenwriters, comprising 13 percent. In the case of Wonder Woman, the film is credited to Allan Heinberg with contributions from three other male writers.
The Mummy, however, falls more in line with the statistics laid out above since it was directed by Kurtzman from a script by David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie, and Dylan Kussman. Contributing to the story of The Mummy were Kurtzman, Jon Spaihts, and Jenny Lumet. As for the cast, Annabelle Wallis’ Jenny Halsey and Sofia Boutella’s Princess Ahmanet are the only two main female characters. Although there isn’t an in-depth breakdown of the cast and dialogue, The Mummy’s lead roles are predominantly men, and Russell Crowe’s Dr. Jekyll has a great deal of dialogue, even telling the story of Princess Ahmanet in a lengthy voiceover. But, it’s how the characters of Jenny and Ahmanet are treated within the story where The Mummy truly fails.
Tom Cruise is cursed. That's both a major plot-point in his latest action blockbuster, the reboot of Universal's The Mummy franchise designed to kick off the studio's “Dark Universe” of monster movies, and a recurring motif in stories written about the 54 year-old actor. This weekend, Variety published an article about his “slow-motion career meltdown” and the box office news has been similarly brutal: The Mummy scarred up only $32.2 million domestically, which is less than any of the entries in the Brendan Fraser version of the series. Even The Rock-led spinoff The Scorpion King had a better opening.
The good news for the beleaguered Cruise? Like the entirely forgettable Pirates of the Caribbean sequel from a couple weeks ago, the movie has performed well overseas, where the idea of watching Tom Cruise fight a mummy is presumably more of a draw. In fact, The Mummy is Cruise's biggest international opening ever, taking in $141.8 million across the globe, which should slowly but surely haul in enough to recoup the movie's reported $125 million production budget.
In the coming weeks, you'll probably see a lot of chin-scratching about the fall-out of Cruise's latest flop, which arrives in a summer filled with underperforming IP-peddling titles like King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Alien: Covenant, and Baywatch. There's also a growing sense that Cruise has lost his way as a performer, chasing franchises instead of working with adventurous filmmakers.
I've got my own theory: The Mummy is bad. Let me explain.
Universal
Tom Cruise doesn't typically make movies as bad as The Mummy. That's not to say that he hasn't starred in his fair share of crap — never forget Rock of Ages — but even the more forgettable ones, like last year's NCIS-episode-stretched-into-a-movie action flick Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, feel like they've been labored over by the famously hands-on star. Like he's keeping a sinking ship afloat through pure charisma.
That ability to perform creative damage control on his own projects has served him well over the years, even as many fans soured on his public persona following the creepy Scientology stories and the Oprah couch incident. As a producer, he's guided the Mission: Impossible series to new critical and commercial heights in recent years. It's unsurprising to read that Cruise was in the editing room “trying to save” The Mummy. You can picture him sweating in an edit bay. Caring too much is baked into the Cruise persona.
It's not that you don't pick up musty whiffs of that trademark intensity in The Mummy. As ex-military adventure boy Nick Morton, Tom Cruise gets his ass kicked in this movie. Looking like a toy fresh from an unboxing video, he gets tossed around in a free-falling airplane, shot out of a truck, beat up by Russell Crowe, and stabbed in the chest by Sofia Boutella's undead title character. If you like watching Cruise's limbs flop around, in between bouts of fussed over exposition, there are worse ways to spend 107 minutes.
Universal
But this might be the first time that Cruise's ability to bend the blockbuster apparatus to his will has been completely overwhelmed by the grueling and increasingly globalized concerns of the market place. Director Alex Kurtzman, who co-wrote the first two Star Trek and Transformers movies, shoots the whole film in a gray haze that never allow the elaborate stunt scenes to pop. Judging from this movie, he doesn't have the eye for action that Transformers auteur Michael Bay brought to his scripts or Star Trek director J.J. Abrams's ease with character.
Similarly, the three credited screenwriters — Christopher McQuarrie, David Koepp, and Dylan Kussman — provide Cruise's protagonist with an enjoyable “scoundrel finds a heart” arc, but unlike the actor's 2014 vehicle Edge of Tomorrow, which followed a soldier on the path to self-awareness, the writers don't pair him off against a worthy adversary like Emily Blunt. He's adrift here. Digging for treasure that's not there.
But there's reason for hope. Even if Universal wants him to be the Iron Man of the Dark Universe, which seems unlikely given the film's tepid reception, there's still reason to believe that Cruise, one of our most hard-working movie stars, will rediscover his mojo. Later this year, he's starring in American Made, a drug-trafficking thriller that re-teams him with Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman. It might not lift the curse, or save the Dark Universe, but it should give him a chance to crawl out of the tomb-like hole he's currently in.
There were few signs that a major blockbuster was about to premiere when “The Mummy” rolled into Manhattan last week. The marquee of the AMC Loews Lincoln Square Theatres had gone blank. The carpet was totally covered with black plastic. Security only let guests past barricades after quizzing them about what they were there to see, and everybody had to walk through two imposing metal detectors.
Inside the theater, Tom Cruise was jubilant, as he stood in front of the crowd. “Hey y’all,” said the 54-year-old actor. He introduced Alex Kurtzman, the film’s director, as well as the cast members, who stood quietly as Cruise delivered a 10-minute improvised speech. “Movies aren’t made by single people,” he said. “It’s a team effort.”
But in the case of “The Mummy,” one person–Cruise–had an excessive amount of control, according to several people interviewed. The reboot of “The Mummy” was supposed to be the start of a mega-franchise for Universal Pictures. But instead, it’s become a textbook case of a movie star run amok.
As Hollywood is playing the blame game on what went wrong on “The Mummy,” which had a measly domestic opening of just $32 million, many fingers are pointing to Cruise. In the same way that he commanded the stage at the film’s premiere, leaving his cast standing awkwardly by his side, several sources close to the production say that Cruise exerted nearly complete creative oversight on “The Mummy,” essentially wearing all the hats and dictating even the smallest decisions on the set. On stage, Cruise admitted his own perfectionist tendencies. “I don’t just make a movie. I give it everything I have and I expect it from everyone also.”
Universal, according to sources familiar with the matter, contractually guaranteed Cruise control of most aspects of the project, from script approval to post-production decisions. He also had a great deal of input on the film’s marketing and release strategy, these sources said, advocating for a June debut in a prime summer period.
With terrible reviews, “The Mummy,” which insiders say cost as much as $190 million to make and more than $100 million more to market and release worldwide, may struggle to make its money back. The film is performing much stronger overseas, where it was Cruise’s biggest international rollout with a $142 million opening weekend. It’s not clear if the movie will break even, and it’s cast a shadow on the studio’s plans for a Dark Universe franchise that’s supposed to feature A-list stars like Johnny Depp (as “The Invisible Man”) and Angelina Jolie (in negotiations for “The Bride of Frankenstein”).
A representative for Cruise didn’t respond to a request for comment. In a statement, Universal refuted that Cruise had a negative influence on the production.
“Tom approaches every project with a level of commitment and dedication that is unmatched by most working in our business today,” the statement read. “He has been a true partner and creative collaborator, and his goal with any project he works on is to provide audiences with a truly cinematic moviegoing experience.”
Cruise’s controlling behavior comes as Hollywood’s star system is in tatters. In the 1990s and early aughts, studios shelled out big money for the likes of Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, and Harrison Ford, confident that their names above the title could guarantee ticket sales. In exchange they were offered big perks, hefty salaries, and a sizable share of the profits. Along with the money came the power to veto key decisions. But as comic book movies and special effects-heavy productions took over, top actors found themselves in less demand and with less influence. Cruise has navigated the new landscape better than some–the “Mission: Impossible” franchise still makes money but other efforts such as “Oblivion” have disappointed. Going forward, he may have difficulty exerting the same kind of sway over other films.
It may be the last hurrah for big movie stars, but on the set of “The Mummy,” Cruise acted like the top gun he once was, calling all the shots. Kurtzman had been in the running to direct the project before Cruise signed on, but the actor gave his blessing for the filmmaker to slide behind the camera. They’d established a comfort level when Kurtzman worked as the screenwriter of “Mission: Impossible III.”
In the wake of “The Mummy’s” failure, the decision to tap such an untested director on a sprawling action-adventure seems to have been foolhardy. Kurtzman wouldn’t necessarily rank high on a studio’s wish list for a project this big, given that he’s a producer and writer who only helmed one small feature that debuted to mixed reviews (2012’s Chris Pine drama “People Like Us”). As Kurtzman struggled to adjust to scope of the project, it felt more like Cruise was the real director, often dictating the major action sequences and micro-managing the production, according to sources.
There were other ways that “The Mummy” was transformed from a scary summer popcorn movie into a standard-issue Tom Cruise vehicle. The actor personally commissioned two other writers along with McQuarrie to crank out a new script. Two of the film’s three credited screenwriters, McQuarrie and Dylan Kussman, an actor-writer who played small roles in “The Mummy” and “Jack Reacher,” were close allies of Cruise’s. The script envisioned Nick Morton as an earnest Tom Cruise archetype, who is laughably described as a “young man” at one point.
His writers beefed up his part. In the original script, Morton and the Mummy (played by Sofia Boutella) had nearly equal screen time. The writers also added a twist that saw Cruise’s character become possessed, to give him more of a dramatic arc. Even though Universal executives weren’t thrilled about the story — which feels disjointed and includes Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll — they went along with Cruise’s vision.
And the crew fell in line too, behind Cruise as the boss. “This is very much a film of two halves: before Tom and after Tom,” said Frank Walsh, the supervising art director, at a London screening of “The Mummy” this week. “I have heard the stories about how he drives everything and pushes and pushes, but it was amazing to work with him. The guy is a great filmmaker and knows his craft. He will walk onto a set and tell the director what to do, say ‘that’s not the right lens,’ ask about the sets, and as long as you don’t fluff what you’re saying to him … he’s easy to work for.”
Once the film was done, Cruise brought in his longtime editor Andrew Mondshein to piece together the final picture. (The film’s credits also list Gina and Paul Hirsch as editors.) He spent time in the editing suite overseeing the cutting, which everybody agreed wasn’t working. On the lot, there were differences of opinions about whether Cruise’s directions were improving a picture that had been troubled from its inception or whether they were turning a horror film into a Cruise infomercial. Some believed that Cruise had no choice but to assert himself. Given Kurtzman’s inexperience directing tentpoles, Cruise, who has carried heavily choreographed action movies all his life, had to try to rally the troops or risk having the production fall behind schedule.
Universal knew that if it wanted “The Mummy” to compete against the likes of “Wonder Woman” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” it needed every ounce of Cruise’s waning star power. As the studio scrambled to deal with weak tracking, it released a portrait in late May of Cruise with other actors from the Dark Universe franchise, including Depp and Javier Bardem (who will play Frankenstein). Yet the studio couldn’t even assemble all the actors in the room at the same time, and the image had to be Photoshopped. The Internet reaction to the last-ditch marketing effort was tepid at best. It was another reminder that the big names that once ruled Hollywood are inspiring a lot less love from audiences.
The reviews may have been brutal, but at the premiere Cruise seemed pleased, complimenting everyone involved and portraying the finished film as a team effort. “Jake! Jake!” he shouted at one of his co-stars Jake Johnson. “It was awesome working with you, Jake!”
Minecraft is about to enter its final form. In August, the Better Together update will land and unify the game across nearly every platform, from iOS and Android to Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. This unification comes courtesy of the Bedrock Engine, which currently powers all mobile, Windows 10, Amazon Fire and VR versions of the game. Now, it won't matter which platform your friends use to play Minecraft — every version will be the same, they'll share DLC and updates, and all players will be able to create new worlds together.
Well, nearly all. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox 360 versions of Minecraft are not included in the initial Better Together update.
“Beginning with Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, we'll be expanding that code base so that all — the vast majority of our community is united,” marketing lead Emily Orrson says.
The Better Together update brings Bedrock to the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch versions of Minecraft, allowing them to play with nearly every other version of the game. With the update, participating consoles get Realms (the game's multiplayer mode), plus the newly launched Community Marketplace. Any existing worlds will transfer directly to Bedrock, as will all DLC players have purchased. The Better Together update also brings infinite worlds to Xbox One and Switch, up from the current, limited grid of about 3 miles by 3 miles.
“They've been asking for some relief there for a long time, and now they'll be able to walk right up inside of those worlds and continue generating them infinitely,” executive producer Jesse Merriam says.
But players on PS4, arguably the most popular current-gen console on the market, won't be moved to Bedrock right away.
“Our goal is to unite all Minecraft players,” Merriam. “Today we're able to confirm Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, but all of our current-gen partners — we're interested in connecting all of the Minecraft players. It's just about what we can confirm today.”
The PS4 and Xbox 360 versions of Minecraft will retain their platform-specific names, while the Java version will formally be named Minecraft: Java Edition, which is what most players call it anyway. So, now, there's the core Minecraft game and three fragmented editions (PS4, Xbox 360 and Java) that aren't guaranteed to receive the same updates or cross-platform capabilities as the main version. It's a welcome step toward unity, but not a complete leap just yet.
“We're partnered very closely with Apple, Google, PlayStation, Nintendo, Amazon, our VR partners — a lot of that, it just is a lot to make sure we're always working in everyone's store and everything else,” Orrson says. “Right now we are doing our best to get everybody connected, but it is work to work through all of the scenarios we encounter.”
Microsoft bought Minecraft in 2014 for $2.5 billion, so it makes sense the Xbox One version is getting some love in the Better Together update. Of course, Sony builds the PS4.
“It's not for lack of wanting to or effort on our part,” senior global communications manager Aubrey Norris says. “We are in discussions with our partners right now. We want PlayStation and we invite Sony to bring PlayStation players onto Bedrock, but we can't get any further into — these are confidential discussions.”
Microsoft and developer Mojang are far from done with Minecraft. Better Together is part of a larger push to transform Minecraft into a “creative platform.” Developers want it to be more than a game. They want it to be the foundation for community-driven innovation, connection and creativity.
The Community Marketplace, which hit Pocket and Windows 10 editions in June, was a big part of this transition, allowing players to search for, buy and sell their own in-game creations.
Servers are also getting some attention in Better Together. These allow players to mess around in completely unique worlds built by dedicated fans. Now, there'll be a Servers tab next to the “Worlds” and “Friends” tabs at start-up, introducing a whole new community of players to fan-favorite universes like Lifeboat, an endeavor created by a 14-year-old and his dad that boasts 6 million players per month. Initial servers landing on Bedrock are Lifeboat, CubeCraft, Mineplex and InPvP.
One final update makes Minecraft even more self-contained: A built-in crafting recipe book.
“We want to bring the strengths of all the existing crafting systems together,” Merriam says. “Today, the Java edition is really known for discovery and experimentation as you go to the crafting grid and try things out and see what actually turns out to be a recipe.”
The recipe book will allow fans to toggle recipes directly in the crafting grid, eliminating the need to set down the game and find the relevant Wiki page. But, those who like to experiment with recipes are free to ignore the book completely.
“Anyone who's interacted with a hardcore Minecraft fan will know there's a lot of pride a kid will feel if they know the recipe for a boat,” Merriam says.
