riter-director Stephen Sommers, whose 1999 update of Universal's classic horror movie The Mummy broke box-office records, went back to the desert May 4 with The Mummy Returns. The adrenalized sequel reunites the original film's creative team and cast, including Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo and Oded Fehr, and adds a significant new face: pro-wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
Sommers faced a daunting challenge meeting the high expectations of Mummy fans in the sequel, which he aimed at making bigger and better than the original. In the sequel, Fraser's Rick O'Connell and Weisz's Evelyn are now father and mother to eight-year-old Alex, who becomes pivotal to a new story involving the Mummy, his ancient love, Anck-Su-Namun (played again by Patricia Velasquez), and a host of other bad guys.
One of the key additions to the story was the character of the Scorpion King, played by The Rock. Though his screen time is limited, The Rock makes an impression--so much so, that Universal green-lighted a prequel based solely on his character even before The Mummy Returns opened. The Scorpion King, which opens next year, fills in the backstory of the larger-than-life character.
Sommers and The Rock took a few minutes to speak with Science Fiction Weekly about the new film.
Stephen Sommers, The Mummy Returns is a really big movie. Is that what you set out to do this time around?
Sommers: No, I set out to make a small, small movie about a man and his scorpion. And it got big somehow. The heat of the desert: I went insane. But it worked out [laughs].
What was your goal in putting together a sequel to such a popular film?
Sommers: More bombast. More cacophony. It had to be better. We knew we could make a bigger movie. That's not the hard part. The hard part is making it better. We had to come up with a better story. And to get the actors back. Because after Mummy I, all of our careers really took off, and we didn't have to do a sequel. But we all had so much fun, we all thought, "Oh, wouldn't it be great? But let's not screw it up. Let's not do a lame sequel. Let's not damage our careers or the legacy of the first movie." So the key was, for me, to come up with a better script, a better story, evolve all the characters. Make them all more interesting, more intertwined, and just make it better.
To the lay person, at least, the sequel contains many challenging shots. What was the most challenging to shoot?
Sommers: Lay person or not, they were damn challenging to me! ... The Scorpion King [character at the end] was very difficult, because ... they didn't have the technology to do what I wanted them to do. In fact, they just figured [it out]. I mean, they'd been working on it for a year and a half, and they've been aiming for that, but it was a leap of faith for me and even for them to hold that character, that creature, off for the time needed, because the technology hadn't been invented when I came up with it. It's a very complex creature. That's as far as special effects.
As far as directing the movie, in both movies, the climaxes [were challenging]. ... I like very intercut [sequences], where multiple things are happening at the same time. I love doing that in the climax, where the audience is following three stories, and they're all coming together at once. And that was very hard on both movies, but especially this movie, because during the climax, which is basically supposed to happen in one area, we shot it in ... five different countries, if you consider Marin County up north. We shot it in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, England and America. And over a year-long period. And it's all supposed to happen over ... a three-minute period. So my brain was kind of frying trying to keep all that together.
The sword-fighting choreography was also very elaborate. How did you do that?
Sommers: Because the movie is a period movie at the end of the day--I mean, it's a balls-to-the-walls sort of period movie--I didn't want to use wires. That's sort of for movies like The Matrix, and now it's being all overdone. Everybody loves ... the people running on the walls and that sort of stuff. And I thought, "No, I want the actresses to train really hard, and get really good, and then I'll help them out a little bit with camera moves and with editing." But it's really about the actors training their rear ends off, and then me working really hard to make sure they have spectacular fights. But it wasn't all smoke and mirrors tricks.
The film also contains a bus chase through London, and you shear the top off of it under a low bridge. I assume that was a real bus on real streets?
Sommers: Multiple real buses. We fried a couple of real buses doing that. ... It's funny. We just drove a bus under a low bridge. The bridge was ours, though. ... It was funny, because that's one of those stunts that went completely awry. But yet, through the magic of movie-making, it turned out quite wonderfully. ... Everything went wrong on that stunt, trying to pull that off. ... But my editor went in there, and just made it shine. And it's a really great moment in the movie. ... Sometimes the things that turned out the worse, you go, "What the ... ? What are we going to do with this?" Then you get back, and you think about it a little bit, and it turns out wonderfully.
Mr. Johnson, how similar are you and the Scorpion King?
The Rock: I think there's a lot of similarity between The Rock and the Scorpion King in terms of passion and fighting with passion and being brave and being fierce and uncompromising and getting what he wants. Willing to fight and kill for what he wants. Not that I'm going to go out and kill anyone.
This was not an easy shoot for you, was it?
The Rock: We were in the middle of the desert, the Sahara Desert, which is very beautiful, by the way. It's very nice out there. Morocco. And I just got extremely ill out there. It was just such a tough time. Twenty minutes before our first shot, I came down with something. I was told it was sunstroke. So it was just horrific. A lot of running going on that day. Running in the scene. Running to the trailer. Running back. Running here, running there. Sometimes you didn't make it.
You also had to endure a long makeup regime?
The Rock: It was probably around three hours. Wake-up call for me was about 1 a.m., and then we had to leave about 1:30 a.m., and then drive about an hour and a half. A lot of times, we'd drive in the middle of the desert, and amazingly enough, there were actually nomads in the desert, who were living out there. It was amazing. The wonderful thing about this is that we got lost driving in the desert, literally, in the desert, driving, lost, at night, and stopping where these nomads live, and guys getting out and asking for directions.
Tells us about the prequel.
The Rock: The Scorpion King. We're about a month into production. It's going great. We're really, really happy with it. It's based on the character I play in The Mummy Returns. So in The Mummy Returns, obviously, in the end, without giving the movie away, let's just say the Scorpion King is taking a dirt nap at the end of the movie. That's his demise. But now we go prequel to that. We go back in time, about 10 years before he actually became king. And it's myself, Michael Clarke Duncan's in it from The Green Mile, who's fantastic. And director Chuck Russell, who directed The Mask, excellent. ... We're shooting in L.A. On location in Arizona, we'll go out there for the desert scenes, but for the most part it's all done in L.A.
When do you wrap?
The Rock: I rap every once and a while in the shower. If I hear good tunes, I can really rap a good one, because my boy Trick Daddy and Wyclef and all those guys ... Oh, the film? ... We're wrapping the film, probably, hopefully, mid-June? I don't know, that's trying to be positive, optimistic, who knows?
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