TedStixon

Trivia: Rutger Hauer receives prominent billing in the opening credits... however, he actually has less than sixty seconds of screentime in the entire film, and only appears in one scene during the film's opening ten minutes. He was cast for this cameo due to his notoriety within the sci-fi genre, as a playful homage by director Luc Besson.

TedStixon

Trivia: The film contains a few minor nods and references to director Luc Besson's previous film "The Fifth Element." This is quite fitting, as "The Fifth Element" was partially inspired by the original "Valerian and Laureline" comic books, and Besson even hired the original comic artist to help in the production design department for that film.

TedStixon

Question: Bubbles dies because she was wounded in battle... yet nowhere in the scene could I see her actually get hit or hurt. Am I missing something, or do we just not see the moment where she's mortally wounded?

TedStixon

Trivia: Prior to director Stephen Sommers becoming attached to the film, Universal had tried for a number of years to make a new "Mummy" movie. At one point, renowned horror author and filmmaker Clive Barker was even attached, and was going to write and direct a low-budget, hard-R "Mummy" movie, but he eventually walked away. Subsequently, filmmakers including Joe Dante and George A. Romero became attached at different points. Finally, Sommers pitched his vision - a cross between Indiana Jones and Jason and the Argnonauts, with a new flashier Mummy created with modern-day effects - which the producers loved.

TedStixon

Trivia: When fireballs and hail begin to rain down from the sky, the "hail" we see onscreen in a few shots is just dry dog-food that had been spray-painted white and was bring dropped from above camera by a few stage-hands.

TedStixon

Trivia: Almost all of the muzzle-flashes in the film were digitally added, for two specific reasons. The first being that sometimes muzzle-flashes simply don't show up on film. And second, due to the environment in which the film was made, sand would constantly jam-up the guns the production was using, often in the middle of a shot.

TedStixon

Trivia: In one scene, Beni is holding his hat, revealing a rather bad haircut underneath. The actor, Kevin J. O'Connor had just gotten a haircut, but the barber accidentally botched it, leaving him with an unfortunate short, ratty hairstyle. O'Connor thought it looked hilarious and asked to shoot one scene where he had his hat off as a gag. Director Sommers obliged, but as a joke tried to claim in the commentary track that O'Connor really liked the bad haircut and wanted to show it off because he thought it looked cool.

TedStixon

Trivia: When the prison warden is being killed by the scarab, during filming, the actor for some reason chose not to wear any underwear, and because he was moving so much, his private-bits kept "falling out" of his pants during takes. The editor had to cut around the unintentional nudity as much as he could. Unfortunately, if you chose to go through the scene frame-by-frame, you can indeed catch about two-frames of footage featuring some of the nudity that got overlooked somehow. Evidently, the MPAA didn't catch it, so the film got to keep its PG-13 rating.

TedStixon

Trivia: The soldier-mummies were not in the original script. Instead, Jonathan would accidentally bring to life a giant statue. It was cut for the enormous cost the computer effects for the statue would have incurred, and replaced with the soldier-mummies, since they could be accomplished mainly with old-school suit effects mixed with only minimal CG for specific shots.

TedStixon

Continuity mistake: At the quarry, there is an amusing scene where the boys all ogle Beverly. When she turns to look at them, they all pretend like they weren't staring at her. Pay attention to Richie during the next four shots. Richie looks to his right twice between the first two shots, and his legs go from crossed to uncrossed between the third and fourth shots.

TedStixon

Trivia: As a family film, this marks director Eli Roth's first film to not be rated a hard-R. All six of his prior films were notorious for their violence and gory content.

TedStixon

Trivia: A fourth film in the series, under the working title "The Mummy: Rise of the Aztec," was rumored for a number of years after the release of this third film due to its financial success. Brendan Fraser, Luke Ford, John Hannah and Maria Bello were reportedly all contracted for the film, while Antonio Banderas had been approached for the part of the villain. After significant progress had failed to be made by 2012, the film was quietly cancelled, and the series was eventually rebooted in 2017.

TedStixon

Trivia: Though Vin Diesel chose not to take part in the prior sequel "xXx: State of the Union", he expressed interest in 2006 in returning to the series. The project was stuck in development hell for nearly a full decade, but filming eventually commenced in 2016. The film was eventually released 15 years after the original and 12 years after the prior sequel.

TedStixon

Trivia: This film marks the second occasion where Vin Diesel starred in an action film, opted out of the first sequel, and then returned in the third film. The first was the "Fast and the Furious" franchise - Diesel starred in the original, didn't appear in the second film, and then returned to the series with a surprise cameo in the third film and appearing in every subsequent sequel thereafter. Diesel has stated that should a fourth "xXx" be made, he will be back.

TedStixon

Trivia: The first film released by production company Revolution Studios in ten years. Revolution (who also released the prior two films) had drifted away from film production and moved to television for a period of time before returning with this film.

TedStixon

Trivia: In the final scene, Augustus Gibbons' glasses have one lens darkened - a nod to actor Samuel L. Jackson's role as the one-eyed Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

TedStixon

Trivia: The film's original title was "In a Dark Place," and it was written as an R-rated thriller. The film was re-written to remove some excessive sexual themes and it was re-titled "The Boy" shortly before filming began.

TedStixon

Trivia: In order to maintain secrecy, the movie was shot under the working title "The Woods." Posters and promotional material for the film under this false title were even made and distributed to some theaters and festivals before the real title was revealed.

TedStixon

Trivia: A somewhat comical behind-the-scenes fact: During filming, in order to get the actors to jump and act scared at the right moments, director Adam Wingard would occasionally secretly carry around an air-horn and "honk" it when the actors weren't expecting it. (And then obviously dub over a scarier sound effect in post).

TedStixon

Trivia: Spoilers: At one point during the climax, you can briefly see a creature with long arms and legs barging through a doorway for a split-second. Many viewers assumed that this was the titular "Blair Witch." However, the screenwriter has stated that any creatures/specters visible in the film are meant to be grotesque manifestations of the witch's past victims (with the long-limbed creature presumably being Heather given she's in the place where Heather died), and that as stated earlier in the film by one of the characters, nobody can actually "see" the witch herself.

TedStixon