Hollywood will finally bless us with a third sequel in the The Mummy franchise.
Brendan Fraser made the announcement a few days ago, and the whole world cheered. The original The Mummy is a masterpiece of its genre, the sort of swashbuckling adventure you rarely get these days.
Fraser has spent the last few years lobbying for a fourth film in this franchise, and audiences cannot help but celebrate the news because it will put money in the actor’s pocket while simultaneously elevating his star. Fraser is a fascinating case.
Many of you first saw him in 1997’s George of the Jungle. He was young and handsome, boasting the sort of athletic physique and charming smile that every woman craved, and every man envied.
No one in their right mind would have described him as an underdog. So, what changed? Common sense will compel you to blame box office flops such as Furry Vengeance from 2010, but that is only one small aspect of the equation. Three components sank Fraser’s personal and professional life.
First, the actor and his wife (Afton Smith) of 11 years divorced. The court asked Fraser to pay Afton $600,000 annually in alimony and child support, a figure that became difficult to sustain once Hollywood stopped hiring him.
Secondly, Fraser sustained injuries while doing stunts for movies, which forced him to undergo a litany of surgeries. These operations consumed seven years of the actor’s life. They have also raised questions about Fraser’s ability to lead The Mummy 4.
Even if you exclude the injuries, the actor is 56 years old. Fraser has dismissed these concerns, explaining that VFX and professional stuntmen will fill whatever gaps his age and physical limitations create. This brings us to the Philip W. Berk controversy.
Berk was the president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which runs the Golden Globe awards ceremony. The board expelled him from his position in 2021. However, the questionable comments he made about ‘Black Lives Matter’ were merely the final straw.
Berk’s downfall began when Fraser accused him of sexual assault. Initially, Berk insisted that Fraser was lying. Then he released a memoir in 2014 that dismissed his encounter with the actor as a joke. Apparently, he had pinched Fraser’s butt ‘in jest.’
This is how Fraser described the incident: “His left hand reaches around, grabs my ass cheek, and one of his fingers touches me in the taint. And he starts moving it around. I felt ill. I felt like a kid. I felt like there was a ball in my throat. I thought I was going to cry. In my mind, at least, something had been taken away from me.”
The event was so traumatic that Fraser withdrew from the Hollywood community. More than that, Fraser believes that studios stopped casting him because he attempted to speak out about Berk’s actions. He is convinced that Hollywood cancelled him.
The internet’s response to Fraser’s allegations is fascinating. Once his accusations became public knowledge in 2018, he became a global darling overnight.
I call the reaction ‘fascinating’ because male voices on the internet who routinely question every woman who alleges sexual assault did not hesitate to believe Fraser’s account, suggesting that people are more sympathetic about incidents that affect their gender, which is why women rarely show concern for men who are saddled with astronomical alimony payments when a divorce occurs.
Putting that aside, Brendan Fraser’s star has skyrocketed in the years since he returned to the limelight. After everything he has endured, the public wants to see him win, which is why the Mummy 4 announcement generated so much excitement.
Yes, we want to see another film in this franchise. But more than that, we are rooting for Brendan Fraser.
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