Brendan Fraser seemed on the verge of being a major movie star in the late 1990s.

But it never came to be.

We look at why…

This article comes fromDen of Geek UK.

Steve Buscemis presence helped too, of course.

Cant grumble with that.

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The ascent at the box office started in earnest with a surprise hit.

Rarely has a film embraced a single gag so successfully.

But then, of course, it had a leading man who could sell it.

Time and time again.

Brendan Frasers performance as George displays the kind of easy charm that makes a movie star.

It was a breakthrough film for him.

The bit where the rest of the world started to notice him.

And it was in that period of critical and commercial success that Frasers first summer blockbuster was released.

There are lots of reasons for the success of 1999sThe Mummyreboot.

But it was the casting that outright sold it.

Fraser, as Rick OConnell, was a proper, old-style leading man.

But he didnt take them.

Yet Fraser was already deep into further projects.

He signed up for the remake ofBedazzledfor the late Harold Ramis, a middling hit co-starring Elizabeth Hurley.

The Fraser peak, though came with the three films that he made next.

Henry SelicksMonkeybonewas the moment, Id suggest, when Hollywood got suspicious of Frasers box office appeal.

Thats not supposed to sound like faint praise, either.

Maybe, maybe not.

For the purposes of Fraser, he didnt.

I wonder if thats when studios started getting a bit more guarded with their checkbooks towards him.

That said, a huge success would follow.

Im not much of a fan ofThe Mummy Returns, that subsequently landed in the summer of 2001.

It outgrossed the original comfortably, and Frasers Rick OConnell was pretty much the agreed highlight.

It remains the highest grossing film of Frasers career.

But at this stage, I first wondered if he actually wanted to be a movie star.

Instead, commendably, he went off-piste.

And he would take his part in the ensemble of Best Picture Oscar winner,Crash.

The same year, he also headlined the far more interestingInkheart, but that quickly died a death.

The closest Fraser gets to any of this summers blockbusters though is if he buys a ticket.