The Mummy director Alex Kurtzman responds to negative reviews: 'We made a film for audiences, not critics'

Yet, the film is still expected to lose the studio $95 million...

Jack Shepherd
Tuesday 20 June 2017 08:55 BST
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Critics weren’t exactly riveted by The Mummy.

Rotten Tomatoes — the review aggregate website — currently has the critical reception as only 16 percent positive, one critic calling it ‘Tom Cruise’s worst film’.

Luckily, director Alex Kurtzman wasn’t making the film for critics, but for the fans! "Obviously, that's disappointing to hear,” he told Business Insider when questioned about the negative reviews.

“The only gauge that I really use to judge it is having just traveled around the world and hearing the audiences in the theatres. This is a movie that I think is made for audiences and in my experience, critics and audiences don't always sing the same song.”

While explaining he doesn't read the negative press, Kurtzman said of bad reviews: ”It is the thing that kills your soul when you have just gone through an experience like this one we just went through.”

He continued: ”I'm not making movies for [critics]. Would I love them to love it? Of course, everybody would, but that's not really the endgame. We made a film for audiences and not critics so my great hope is they will find it and they will appreciate it."

So, how did the audiences feel about The Mummy? The film’s cinemascore — a grade from cinema going audiences — marks the film as B-, below everything else currently showing in American cinemas apart from The Circle (D+) It Comes at Night (D), 47 Meters Down (C), and Rough Night (C+).

Audiences apparently prefer Surfs: The Lost Village (A), Ghost in the Shell (B), Baywatch (B+), The Boss Baby (A-), King Arthur (B+), Wonder Woman (A), Pirates of the Caribbean 5 (A-), The Fate of the Furious (A) and many, many more.

For those spending £10 on a cinema ticket, then, Tom Cruise flick probably comes pretty low on the priority list of must-see films, no doubt contributing to the film reportedly losing the studio $95 million (£75 million).

Meanwhile, reports have emerged calling saying Cruise on The Mummy’s set 'became a textbook case of a movie star run amok’. The film — which kickstarts the Dark Universe — is currently showing in cinemas.

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