From filming inside of a dormant volcano to insurance policies that covered kidnapping,
here are some lesser known facts about 1999's "The Mummy".
The fictional Rick O'Connell and Evelyn Carnahan certainly deal with more than their share of
plagues and curses in "The Mummy." The crew and cast of actors including stars Brendan Fraser,
and Rachel Weisz, also dealt with a few plagues of their own making the film. Filming out in the
desert was no easy task when temperatures often hit 130 degrees Fahrenheit each morning. Not to
mention, the Moroccan dunes were a cozy home to a host of creeping, slithering creatures.
"What do you mean bugs? I hate bugs!"
A professional scorpion catcher was even stationed on the set. Rachel Weisz told The Birmingham Post:
"What is a place like me doing in a girl like this?"
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly,
Brendan Fraser talked about a particularly memorable encounter with a poisonous snake:
Sure, "The Mummy" was a fantastical action-adventure blockbuster movie,
but there were grains of historic truth amid all that sand. When director Sommers wasn't
busy animating corpses, he called in the help of noted Egyptologist Doctor Stuart Smith from
UCLA. Since no one today was around over two thousand years ago to hear how people spoke
ancient Egyptian. So Mummy movie star Arnold Vosloo, who played the villainous Imhotep,
worked with Doctor Smith to get the dialogue and the lines as accurate as possible.
Sommers told Cinefantastique:
Vosloo was so committed to making his character seem realistic and plausible,
he worked for hours into the night, learning lines phonetically over the phone with Doctor Smith.
"Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-te-doooo!
I am in excellent voice today!"
The crew was just as committed to creating as many authentic props and sets as possible. Production
designer Allan Cameron made long trips to the British Museum to find his inspiration.
Cameron said:
Even though "The Mummy" is set in Egypt, filming for the movie was done in Morocco and London.
The Sahara desert, near the city of Erfoud, became the background for the desert scenes.
The city of Marrakesh became an excellent stand-in for 1920s Cairo as it had preserved much of its
traditional architecture. The film crew took down telephone poles and electrical cables to make the
location appear even more like 1920's Egypt. The town hall became the Cairo Museum of Antiquities,
which Evelyn promptly destroys in the film. Marrakesh wasn't the only stand-in for another
city. Those memorable river scenes in "The Mummy" were filmed on England's Thames River,
and not the Nile. So when Rick shouts out to Beni:
"Hey Beni! Looks to me like you're on the wrong side of the river!"
He's being more accurate than many might realize!
While it seems impossible now to imagine "The Mummy" as anything other than a comedy-horror
"hokum" flick, that's not how the film was initially planned. "The Mummy" went through
over nine years of development, multiple scripts, and several directors before being turned over to
Stephen Sommers. Previous screen treatments were contributed by "Innerspace's" Joe Dante, "Night of
the Living Dead's" George Romero, "Hellraiser's" Clive Barker, and "Shock Wave's'" Alan Ormsby.
The earlier scripts were generally more straightforward as horror films,
though one script set the mummy in Beverly Hills, wreaking havoc at a local lab. There
was even a discussion about having "The Mummy" be more like "The Terminator." Tom Cruise,
Ben Affleck, and other popular male leads at the time were rumored to be originally offered
the part of Rick O'Connell. None of this gossip is confirmed, no matter how juicy.
"He's still… he's still…"
"Juicy."
Stephen Sommers was a childhood fan of the original 1932 Boris Karloff film,
but that classic doesn't share much with the modern remake. For starters,
no one is confronted by a giant wall of sand. Movie-goers in the late '90s were desperate for an
action hero that didn't take himself too seriously and a mummy that embodied a real sense of danger.
Stephen Sommers explained it this way to Cinefantastique:
Stephen Sommers told Cinefantastique one of the reasons Brendan Fraser was cast as Rick O'Connell:
"Oh yeah, this just keeps gettin' better and better."
For the scene in which Rick faces the hangman's noose, Fraser was only needed
for close-ups. But in volunteering to do more for the scene, he tells of a complete blacking out.
As Fraser recently recalled the incident for Entertainment Weekly:
Sommers disputes this version of events, saying that Fraser "is totally to blame."
"I wouldn't say that."
Nevertheless, the two continue to be good friends. But the fact remains that
filming was intense. Fraser needed multiple surgeries — including back
surgery — after filming the first three films due to injuries and physical strain.
"I am a LIBRARIAN!"
In "The Mummy," Rachel Weisz proved there was more to a librarian than meets the eye. She did
some of her own stunts, including camel riding, which despite what her character says on camera…
"I think they're adorable!"
Weisz didn't find them quite so adorable off-camera. As for stunts,
one that concerned her was not her own,
but one that injured a stuntman during a gunfight. As she told The Birmingham Post:
Before her role as Evelyn Carnahan in "The Mummy,"
Weisz was still relatively unknown. She confessed that she had not thought about
doing a big-budget movie before until she saw the script for "The Mummy."
As she explained to The Mirror:
Oddly enough, after "The Mummy" was a hit, Playboy invited Rachel Weisz to
model as her librarian character for the magazine. She declined.
The real-life Imhotep was not a supervillain. He was a high priest,
an architect, and a physician. Imhotep designed the Step Pyramid of Djoser,
which is located in Saqqarah. The city of the dead Hamanaptra, however, is purely fictional.
The fictional version of Imhotep appeared in Universal's classic 1932 version of "The Mummy,"
Boris Karloff also portrays Imhotep searching for a modern-day reincarnation of his lost love,
Ankh-esen-amun. It appears that the original film's writers, John L. Balderston, Nina Wilcox
Putnam, and Richard Schayer relied on ancient Egyptian mythology and folklore in their work.
Arnold Vosloo is a classically trained South African actor and
horror fan who appeared in Ridley Scott's "1492:
Conquest of Paradise." Later he played the lead in two direct-to-video "Darkman" films.
Stephen Sommers recalled Vosloo's audition for the Mummy:
Vosloo intended to play Imhotep seriously with no
hint of silliness or camp. He wanted to emphasize the character's romance.
Vosloo told Cinefantastique:
In addition to examining his character's motivations, Vosloo researched his physical
appearance, including the fact that Egyptian priests were fully shaven.
Director Stephen Sommers agreed to try it out and the results spoke for themselves.
Kevin J. O'Connor played the hilariously evil Beni Gabor, the opportunistic henchman for the mummy.
He had worked with director Stephen Sommers before, on the action film, "Deep Rising."
O'Connor created many aspects of his character. He told interviewer Jim Conlan Chats that he
asked the costuming department for pants that didn't fit. He regretted requesting
open-toed sandals after a wriggling creature squiggled under the sand on the first day.
One of O'Connor's most popular lines was inspired by the giant sand wall effect, which none of the
cast had seen yet. Based on a description, O'Connor came up with this memorable ad-lib:
"I loved the whole sand wall trick. It was beautiful."
The actor intentionally added the line to reinforce the impression
of a slimy employee man "kissing up to his boss."
"You see me as God, right, Smithers?"
"Absolutely, sir."
"You'd kneel before me?"
"Boy, would I!"
Beni became a popular character, and even though he was chewed up by beetles in the
first film. Sommers talked with O'Connor about the possibility of bringing Beni back for the sequels,
reanimated as a "discombobulated mummy." In the end, with so much jammed into "The
Mummy Returns" there was no room for Beni to return to his former spinelessness.
A lot has been learned since Hollywood released "The Mummy" in 1999. Like Imhotep himself,
there are aspects of his movie that don't come across as very sensitive in today's
world. The film remains a beloved favorite for many audiences, but in retrospect,
there appear to be a few bugs in it due to its portrayals of ancient Egyptian culture
and people of color. Since the movie's release, several actors have rethought their casting.
Arnold Vosloo told Entertainment Weekly:
Omid Djalili had ideas about playing his role of Warden Gad Hassan from the beginning. In an effort
to avoid offending audiences, he wondered if he could play his role in a lighthearted manner even
though that wasn't in the script. He discussed this with Stephen Sommers during casting.
In an interview he explained:
For this film, they found a real volcano – at least
a dormant one. Production designer Allan Cameron was up to the task,
flying to Morocco and heading out to the dunes of Erfoud where he discovered the volcano.
As Stephen Sommers told Film Scouts:
Over the course of 16 weeks, the crew built the city of Hamunaptra out in
the desert. These sets were designed to collapse during the final action scenes.
Interior scenes were filmed in London's Shepperton Studios.
Imagine being responsible for the housing, feeding, health,
and safety of over 800 actors, extras, crew members, and even Tuareg horse riders in the
middle of the desert! And what if the city wasn't used to handling 800 visitors at once?
As co-producer Patricia Carr explained:
During location filming, producer James, aka "Jim" Jacks actually took out insurance policies
for kidnapping. According to Brendan Fraser, the policies were each worth …
"One Million Dollars!"
While that's not exactly loose change, Fraser expressed some concern over the figure, saying:
"I only gamble with my life, never my money."
Not all the stars had the same insurance. The insurance coverage for Kevin J. O'Connor,
who played Beni, was for only $50,000. He wasn't too bothered about it, though.
He joked to producer Jim Jacks:
With a parade of sequels, video games, a prequel, and an animated series,
"The Mummy" became the last great action-adventure franchise before the superhero craze. All things
eventually run their course, but you never know when this mummy will rise again.