Anyone with a passing interest in effects-heavy cinema who grew up making regular trips to the theater during the 1990s and 2000s will have seen at least one movie by Stephen Sommers on the big screen, but the filmmaker completely disappeared off the face of the planet following the release of Odd Thomas a full 10 years ago.
Having carved out a niche for himself as a writer and director ready, willing, and able to play in a big budget sandbox where excess was the name of the game, Sommers wound up as one of the industry’s go-to blockbuster architects after delivering the likes of Deep Rising, The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, Van Helsing, and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra in the space of little over a decade.
And yet, the only two credits he’s accrued since 2013 are ceremonial executive producer attachments on a pair of VOD Scorpion King sequels, a dramatic fall for somebody who saw their filmography rack up billions in box office revenue, with The Mummy in particular one of the modern era’s most beloved epics.
It didn’t help that Odd Thomas wrapped in 2011, and then found itself delayed by two years due to a number of legal disputes including a $25 million lawsuit over false advertising and allegations of breached contracts, which culminated in a meager theatrical rollout that barely brought in a million dollars.
The supernatural mystery thriller is definitely underrated, though, and it continues to find new life on streaming after being swept under the rug first time around. The late Anton Yelchin’s title hero is at it again, too, with FlixPatrol outing the unsung fantasy as one of the top-viewed hits on Paramount Plus this weekend.