Trivia: In the scene where Evie wakes up to find a rat on her chest she screams and rolls over and the rat then lands on the female mummy. According to the commentary on the DVD the rat wasn't meant to land on the girl playing the mummy, who was only the make-up lady. As soon as it landed on her she jumped up screaming.
Trivia: An explanation for why there is no salt acid booby-trap protecting the gold book like there was protecting the black book. In the missing scene some of Imhotep's priests burst through the floor/ground and attack Jonathan and Rick, who get tossed aside. The priests then open the gold book's hiding place and get burned all up by the salt acid. You can even see when Rick grabs the TNT that there is smoke rising from the hole.
Trivia: The warning that is on the chest containing the Canopic jars ('Death shall come on swift wings to whomsoever opens this chest') is a variation of the curse that was allegedly written on the walls of Tutankhamen's tomb: 'Death shall come on swift wings to him that toucheth the Pharaoh's tomb'.
Trivia: Oded Fehr's character, Ardeth Bay, is sworn to keep the Mummy from being brought back to life. In the 1932 version with Boris Karloff, "Ardeth Bey" was the name of the Mummy's alias when trying to pass himself off as a modern Egyptian.
Trivia: Reportedly, for some reason all of the camels inexplicably hated Kevin J. O'Connor, and wouldn't cooperate with his commands. The rather humorous scene of his character Beni trying to drag a camel who won't budge was a result of this.
Trivia: Because the white nightdress Evelyn wears during the ship attack got wet, it became transparent, and had to be digitally painted white in post production. Otherwise the film would have lost its PG-13 rating.
Trivia: Near the beginning of the film when Rick gets hanged, the wide shots used are of his stunt double, but in the close up shots it really is Brendan Fraser. Watch his eyes in the final close up before he gets cut down, they are nearly rolled right back in his head. This is because he really was asphyxiating and collapsed after that scene was shot. Rachel Weisz stated that 'he stopped breathing and had to be resuscitated'.
Trivia: The Americans poke fun at O'Connell and Evy, saying that their find, the "juicy mummy", could be dried out and sold as firewood. This is a reference to Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, where his army burned dozens of mummies as fuel.
Trivia: Much about the character Ardeth Bay was changed during filming. For example: Originally, he was meant to be tattooed head-to-toe. But director Stephen Sommers opted to only give him a few tattoos, feeling actor Oded Fehr was too handsome to cover in ink. He was also meant to die in the final battle, but Sommers fell in love with the character and decided to let him live.
Trivia: Arnold Vosloo actually had to be wrapped head-to-toe in bandages for his mummification scene. He found it incredibly distressing, and even joked in the commentary that the scene made him realise that "bondage isn't [his] thing."
Trivia: The opening voice over was meant to be darker in tone and be provided by the titular mummy, Imhotep, as he recounts his curse. However, it was decided that it was simply too weird to hear his voice narrating in English when he obviously wouldn't speak it. The voice-over was then given to Ardeth Bay.
Trivia: The scene where the library shelves fall like dominoes was not CGI, and was done in one take - a reshoot would have taken an entire day to set up.
Trivia: None of the film was shot in Egypt due to unstable political conditions there. Filming was primarily completed in Morocco and England.
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.
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.
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.
Suggested correction: A translucent top did not affect the PG rating of The Deep (1977).
Noman ★
Different eras. The movie "The Bounty" with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins features an abundance of topless native island women but retained a PG rating. It would easily receive an R rating today.
Phaneron ★