Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday!! Today is all about one of the best action/adventure/horror films ever made, The Mummy! The Mummy has found new light as love for it continues to grow. So, be sure to never read from the book, stay away from scarabs, and enjoy these fun facts and pictures!!

(Trivia provided by IMDb.com)

(Pictures provided by google.com, facebook.com, and IMDb.com)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• During Rick O’Connell’s hanging scene, Brendan Fraser ended up legitimately choking and almost dying. According to his co-star, Rachel Weisz (Evelyn Carnahan), Fraser stopped breathing and had to be resuscitated.
• The scene where one of the camels refused to be pulled by Beni (Kevin J. O’Connor) was real. No one knows why, but all the camels hated O’Connor.
• Brendan Fraser was considered for the role of Rick after his success in George Of The Jungle.
• The opening narration was originally supposed to be voiced by Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo). However, the film’s director, Stephen Sommers realized that Imhotep couldn’t speak English. So, the narration was given to Oded Fehr (Ardeth Bay) instead.
• Patricia Velasquez’s body paint took about 4 hours to apply. She was almost completely nude in the film. Aside from the paint, all she had on was a loin cloth, some jewelry, and pasties.

• If there were any mistakes in filming the library disaster scene, it would’ve taken an entire day to set everything back up and reshoot. Luckily, everything was successfully done in one take and didn’t need to be reset.
• The Medjai’s faces were originally supposed to be absolutely covered in tattoos. However, Stephen Sommers changed his mind when he realized Oded Fehr was too good-looking to cover up.
• The white nightgown that Evelyn donned during the boat ambush ended up being see-through when drenched. It had to be digitally painted during post production.
• An Egyptologist was brought on to aid with the Ancient Egyptian dialogue. They helped the actors pronounce their dialogue phonetically.
• When creating Imhotep as the mummy, the special effects team was instructed to leave out any gore. They really liked the idea of him being “transparent” so they didn’t apply any of his organs to his final look.

• There were unstable political conditions at the time, so filming couldn’t actually be done in Egypt, so filming was done in Morocco instead. The Moroccan army supported the film and kidnapping insurance was provided for all the cast members. Stephen Sommers didn’t mention the kidnapping insurance to any of the cast members until filming was complete.
• The scene where the locusts were crawling all over Dr. Allen Chamberlain was understandably difficult to shoot for Jonathan Hyde. Hyde had trouble keeping a straight face so the scene had to be reshot several times.
• Arnold Vosloo also had difficulty shooting a scene. Where Imhotep is wrapped and placed in the sarcophagus, he had to be wrapped in those bandages for 4 hours. A very stressful time for him.
• The moment where Evelyn pulled Rick away from the 2 bullets flying at him was created by Stephen Sommers.
• During filming, John Hannah (Jonathan Carnahan) ended up spraining his wrist. That’s why near the end of the film, we see Jonathan wearing a brace on his wrist.

• The prison scene was shot at an apartment complex in Marrakech.
• Filming the desert scenes provided a lot of dangers for cast and crew. Snakes, scorpions, spiders, sandstorms, and dehydration were the major problems for production.
• Kevin J. O’Connor improvised his line “think of my children.”
• For the raining fire and hail scene, dried dog food was painted white and used as hail which was thrown down on the set.
• It was rumored that Leonardo DiCaprio was offered the role of Rick and he wanted to be in the film so bad, he asked the people behind the movie, The Beach, if production could be delayed so he could be in The Mummy. The producers of The Beach refused to delay and DiCaprio couldn’t get out of his commitment to it. Ironically, The Beach ended up being delayed for a different reason.

• Stephen Dunham initially auditioned for Rick but didn’t get the role. However, Stephen Sommers was so impressed with Dunham, he created the character of Mr. Henderson specifically for him.
• Stephen Sommers was only 8 when he first saw 1932’s The Mummy. He said it was the one movie that scared him as a kid. He wanted to recreate all the things he liked about the original film and up the scales for this film.
• In between filming, Brendan Fraser whittled a desert canoe.
• At some point before filming, Stephen Sommers realized he didn’t write anywhere how Warden Gad Hassan (Omid Djalili) got off the boat. So, the scene where the warden runs up to Rick and Rick tells him to wait on the boat was added at the last minute.
• The design of the scarabs was accomplished by combining all of the worst aspects of different insects.

• During the scene where Beni was in Chamberlain’s office, he was roughed up so badly, that Kevin J. O’Connor had to ice his nipples after filming.
• For Imhotep’s roar, lion and bear roars were mixed into the overall sound.
• Of the film’s $80,000,000 budget, 15,000,000 was spent on special effects alone.
• Tom Cruise, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, Chris O’Donnell, Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell, Bruce Campbell, and Matthew McConaughey were all considered for the role of Rick. Funny enough, Tom Cruise later starred in 2017’s The Mummy.
• Clive Barker, Joe Dante, Sam Raimi, George Romero, and Wes Craven were considered to direct the film. If Dante directed it, he would’ve cast Daniel Day-Lewis as Imhotep.

• Anna Friel was considered for the role of Evelyn.
• Ardeth Bay was originally going to die at the end of the film. However, Stephen Sommers didn’t like this because he felt the character was too heroic to just be killed off like that.
• During the scene where Jonathan reads from the Book of the Living, he was initially going to awaken the statue of Anubis. This had to be changed due to budgetary concerns, so Jonathan ended up resurrecting the Pharaoh’s guards instead.
• The scene where Evelyn is chained on the sacrificial slab took 9 days to shoot.
• When they filmed the scene where the warden starts freaking out after the scarab starts crawling under his skin, Omid Djalili decided not to wear underwear for unknown reasons. This caused an obvious wardrobe malfunction. If you look closely, you can see his… tip pop out of his pants as he writhes in pain.