10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Mummy (1999)

1999’s The Mummy is a movie I absolutely fell in love with when I first saw it in theaters… I have said it before, but I am a sucker for a good Indiana Jones inspired movie and The Mummy more than qualified. Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz had great chemistry as the two main protagonists… Arnold Vosloo was excellent as the villain… there was a strong supporting cast of characters… a well paced story… and some amazing visual effects for the time. What’s not to love!?!?

Recently I sat down and dusted off my old The Mummy DVD and gave it a spin with the commentary track on. Director Stephen Sommers and his longtime editor Bob Ducsay provided the commentary on the DVD release and had a wealth of behind the scenes knowledge to share. And now I will share some of what I learned as I present 10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Mummy…

1. Director Stephen Sommers had a professor of Egyptology on set as an advisor. Sommers even called upon the professor to write the lines spoken in “ancient Egyptian” or in this case the professor’s educated opinion since no one had actually spoken ancient Egyptian in thousands of years.

2. The library scene where Rachel Weisz’s character Evelyn Carnahan is introduced in memorable fashion as she is the cause of the shelves containing over 12,000 books falling like dominoes was filmed in a single take.

3. One scene that was cut from the early portion of the film featured Evelyn’s boss/museum curator, Dr. Terrence Bey (Erick Avari), meeting with Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr) and the Medjai. The decision to cut the scene was made so the scene later in the film where the Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser), Evelyn and Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah) shockingly discover that Dr. Bey is in cahoots with the Medjai would be a surprise for the audience as well.

4.Speaking of the Medjai, the script described them as being tattooed from head to toe… that idea was scrapped and with each member sporting SOME facial tattoos but not being completely covered.

5. There were numerous wardrobe malfunctions during the production of The Mummy… Rachel Weisz’s white nightgown became nearly transparent after she had to abandon ship and swim for shore. Some post production work was able to keep things in the PG-13 realm… Arnold Vosloo’s Imhotep the Mummy got a little cheeky at one point… But both of those incidents paled in comparison to Omid Djalili who experienced multiple wardrobe malfunctions. The script called for a comical scene where Omid’s Warden Gad Hassan character was crawling away and his pants would slip down and expose his drawers… but for whatever reason the wardrobe people decided it would be funnier if the Warden was going commando so he ended up showing off way more ass than anyone needed to see and that scene was cut. The lack of underwear would come into play in the scene where the scarabs crawl under the skin of the Warden and he freaks out and flails around… the first four takes of that scene, Omid’s junk fell out of his pants!

6. Arnold Vosloo was disappointed in the look of The Mummy when Imhotep first comes back to life. Vosloo was hoping for a more graphic, gooier and gorier look… but the amount of gore and blood had to be reigned in to keep the PG-13 rating.

7. Even though Imhotep was a CGI character until he was fully formed, Vosloo still played a part in creating the CGI Imhotep through the magic of motion capture. Vosloo donned the mocap suit and provided the movements for CGI Imhotep.

8. While CGI played a a huge part in bringing the movie to life, there were times practical effects were used, like when Stephen Sommers personally poured buckets of actual locusts on Jonathan Hyde, who played Dr. Allen Chamberlain.

9. At the world premiere of The Mummy, the bulb burned out on the projector and by the time it was replaced, the scene where Bernard Fox’s character had come and gone. Sommers tracked down Fox at the premiere and assured him that the scene was not cut from the film.

10. The big finale featuring the big battle against the priest mummies and the soldier mummies took a total of nine days to film and Sommers called it the hardest thing he ever had to shoot.