What Exactly Happened To Tom Cruise's Nick Morton In The Mummy?
Universal had big plans for "The Mummy," with the reboot set to ignite their cinematic universe, the Dark Universe, bringing many iconic monsters together on-screen. While Tom Cruise's Nick Morton would have played a significant role moving forward, a disappointing box-office run ultimately crushed any dreams of a massive franchise, but where did his story end?
"The Mummy" more or less turns Nick Morton's life on its head. In the final battle against Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), he stabs himself with the Dagger of Set, allowing the ancient Egyptian god to possess his body. He eventually overpowers Set, regaining control of his body, and uses the god's power to kill Ahmanet and resurrect his friends. As the movie ends, Nick, with Set still inside him, returns to the deserts of Egypt, bringing Chris (Jake Johnson) with him to find a cure for his newly acquired curse.
"The Mummy" leaves Nick's story open-ended, with the former U.S. Army sergeant on the run from Prodigium, a secret agency that hunts the supernatural. While we assume Universal planned to elaborate on this in future films, "The Mummy" killed the Dark Universe before it could even begin, adding it to the list of long-term movie franchises that didn't pan out.
The Mummy doomed the Dark Universe
Needless to say, a lot went wrong with "The Mummy" and Universal's plans to establish the Dark Universe on the big screen, preventing any interested parties from seeing Nick Morton's (Tom Cruise) story continue. While the studio clearly bit off more than it could chew, Brendan Fraser, star of the original "The Mummy," believes Universal's approach to the Cruise-led reboot was all wrong from the beginning.
"It is hard to make that movie," he told Variety. "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 that incarnation. It was too much of a straight-ahead horror movie. 'The Mummy' should be a thrill ride, but not terrifying and scary."
Similarly, Alex Kurtzman, director of the 2017 movie, also recognizes the mistakes he and the production made in their attempt to establish the Dark Universe, calling it "the biggest failure of his life" during an appearance on "Bingeworthy." While he's thankful for the opportunity to direct the film, he regrets several decisions, like not trusting a gut feeling he had where something didn't feel right while making "The Mummy." Although the director can't quite place what was wrong, many reviews, like Fraser's and Variety's, pointed out the lack of fun in the movie, which, if correctly implemented, could have played a significant factor in the Dark Universe's fate.