The Mummy: Why Brendan Fraser did not appear in the Tom Cruise movie

Universal's Dark Universe made a kickstart with Tom Cruise starrer, The Mummy reboot, in the last week. The first instalment of the horror series, which was totally buried by the critics, draws lots of comparison with the 1999 version of The Mummy starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz.

Also read: The Mummy worldwide box office collection: Tom Cruise's biggest ever opening saves the movie on a global scale

While fans eagerly wanted Brendan Fraser to appear in the Universal's new movie, director Alex Kurtzman also did not want to disappoint them. Kurtzman who is best known as a scriptwriter of Transformers and Amazing Spider-Man 2 has hidden an Easter egg in the first installment of the Dark Universe.

The new Mummy movie centers around the Prodigium lead by Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe) which collects many rare artifacts that are related to various strange creatures from the ancient period including the Book of Amun-Ra. In The Mummy, Annabelle Wallis is seen using the golden book as a weapon to take out a member of the Prodigium security team.

If you can't remember, then the book of Amun-Ra was first introduced in the 1999 The Mummy movie while the key was discovered by Evelyn O'Connell's (Rachel Weisz) brother, Jonathan Camahan (John Hannah).

While fans are really curious to know the reason why Brendan Fraser's Rock O' Connell did not appear in The Mummy, director Kurtzman had explained it to Entertainment Weekly in the latest interview. He said, "We wanted to tip our hat to it, and there are two moments that do that in the film [including the Book of Amun-Ra, which Fraser's character uses to defeat Imhotep in 1999's The Mummy].

"We never really talked actively about bringing Brendan Fraser in, because he lived in a very different time period than the modern day and so he would be potentially not even alive. [Laughs] Unless he himself were a monster, it didn't seem like he would make a whole lot of sense. And if he were a monster, then we would have had a lot of explaining to do about why he was there."

Hence the reason is quite justified according to the director because The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon (2008) were set in the year of 1923, 1933, and 1946 respectively.

Given the fact, it would be really impossible to expect Brendan Fraser's character to be alive till date. So, instead of reprising his role in an unrealistic way, the use of the book Amun-Ra seemed more sensible in the new movie.

Watch the trailer for The Mummy (1999) below.