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Trivia: When the film was released on home-video, it shattered the previous record and became the fastest-selling DVD ever, with 2 million units sold in its first week of release. This is actually a significant achievement, as DVD was still in the early stages of taking over, and more people bought VHS tapes than DVD's in 2001. Unfortunately, this record was very short-lived... it was surpassed by "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" only two weeks later, which beat it with 2.2 million units.

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Trivia: Brendan Fraser was somewhat amused and annoyed by the fact that the O'Connells owned a giant estate in the film, as he felt they'd feel more at home in an apartment or smaller house. Director Stephen Sommers said that the reason for the large house was because a large-scale action set-piece takes place in their home, and it just wouldn't work with a smaller house or apartment.

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Trivia: Despite playing the titular character, Mummy actor Arnold Vosloo doesn't appear in the film until 50 minutes in. Up until that point, only his voice is heard, and the character is portrayed by a digital model.

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Trivia: Stephen Sommers has joked that the time-jump in-between films was done only because he didn't want to work with a baby, and a multi-year time-jump instead allowed the O'Connells' son to be an older child.

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Trivia: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson reportedly suffered both sunstroke and food poisoning while on-set. It was said that despite shooting in the (very hot) desert, in between takes, he'd be shivering cold and wrapped in blankets.

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Trivia: Originally, Jonathan was going to own a casino, which he purchased with his share of the treasure from the first film. The battle in which Evelyn is kidnapped was going to take place there. However, for budgetary reasons, this idea was dropped early on, since it would have been a massive cost to build a casino set for only one or two short scenes. The battle was then relocated to Rick and Evelyn's house.

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Trivia: The only entry in the Mummy series to not have an opening title card. The first film, third film and all of the Scorpion King spin-offs have opening title cards, while this film only displays the title during the end credits.

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Trivia: One of the film's most common criticisms is that the CGI for the Scorpion King is notably of a lower quality than all of the other effects. There's actually a reason for this. The character was an early attempt at attempting to make a photorealistic humanoid, and thus the effect took much more work to complete. Additionally, the effect was made before a technique called "subsurface scattering" became prevalent, thus causing the plastic-like sheen on the skin. (Subsurface scattering is a technique that simulates how light penetrates and/or reflects off multi-layered surfaces like skin, thus allowing more realistic lighting and a less plasticy look.) It was so complicated trying to get the character to look "right," that they simply ran out of time and had to use what they had done, even though it wasn't quite complete.

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Trivia: At Izzy's home, there's a man in a bathtub reading a newspaper that's focused on in one shot. You can faintly hear him humming a few notes. The humming was actually done by director Stephen Sommers in an audible cameo, and it was looped over the scene. (Though contrary to popular belief, the man in the tub was just an extra - not director Sommers).

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Trivia: As of 2020, "The Mummy Returns" is still the highest grossing Universal "Mummy" movie both domestically and worldwide. It was the highest grossing of the Stephen Sommers series, and also grossed more than the 2017 reboot in unadjusted dollars. (And if you adjust for inflation, it actually grossed nearly twice what the 2017 film did).

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Trivia: In order to maintain his perfect sculpted, hairless look, the titular mummy actor Arnold Vosloo had to shave his body head-to-toe twice a day during filming.

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