Rick O’Connell & Evelyn Carnahan

THE MUMMY (1999)

2 “After I’d written the script, my editor [Bob Ducsay] said, ‘You know what? This character, it has to be somebody that’s big and strong, and can throw a punch, and can take a punch, but has a good sense of humour,’” says Stephen Sommers.

The writer-director is sitting on the porch of a lake house in Minnesota, drinking his morning coffee with his dog at his feet. But his mind is poking around Hollywood in 1998, recalling why he cast the unlikely duo of Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz as the even more unlikely duo of Rick and Evelyn in his boisterous action-adventure The Mummy.

“At the time, Brendan had only done a couple of movies. But he did the… uh… when he played Tarzan…” George Of The Jungle. “Yeah, he played George of the Jungle. He was built like a brick shithouse. And I saw he has a great sense of humour.”

And Weisz? “The script, it’s really about Evelyn,” Sommers notes. “She starts off prim and proper, a British librarian, and by the end of the movie, she’s an adventuress. I don’t want to badmouth the studio, but they gave me a list of all these American actresses. I decided that it had to be an American guy and a British woman playing these characters. No one knew who Rachel Weisz was. She came in [to audition] two or three times. She was lovely. And thank God I’m such a genius – I cast Rachel Weisz. She’d be over-dressed on a smelly camel, in 115-degree heat, and she never complained.”

There are several reasons why Sommers’ Mummy reinvention worked, a big one being that it was so unexpected – to take a slow, insidiously creepy horror-melodrama starring a bandaged Boris Karloff and fashion it into a rollicking romp swathed in CGI. But perhaps the main reason was its stars’ chemistry.

“I don’t really think about chemistry,” says Sommers. “The audience has to tell you that. But what I could tell was that they got along great. When people genuinely like each other,

and enjoy working with each other… I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be fun.’”

Universal Studios had been developing

The Mummy for nine years when Sommers signed on. They’d burned through numerous writers and directors (including Clive Barker, Joe Dante and George Romero) and were still seeking the right pitch, with a mind to making the action contemporary. Sommers insisted it should be set in the 1920s, with an archaeological dig in the ancient city of Hamunaptra unleashing the titular High Priest Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) and a veritable (sand)storm of cutting-edge special effects. He envisaged an Errol Flynn movie in the age of Industrial Light & Magic.

“When we came out of the meeting

[with Universal], Jim Jacks [producer] was like, ‘I don’t know what you were thinking,’” says Sommers. “He was all pissed off, like: ‘I don’t know what you just pitched in there, but the studio’s trying to do this movie for $15 million. We’re probably going up to $17 million.’ And I go, ‘Hell, I’m going to need $17 million just for visual effects.’” Sommers laughs. “Jim went storming off. And by the time I got home, my agent called and said, ‘You’ve got the gig.’ The studio said, ‘Oh, that’s the kind of Mummy movie we should be making.’” The budget was set at $80m, $15m of which was dedicated to VFX.

Released on 7 May, 1999, The Mummy was a hit beyond anyone’s expectations. The studio was hoping for a $18m opening weekend, while Sommers dared to dream of $20m. Ron Meyer, President and COO of Universal Studios, called Sommers at 5.45am on Monday to break the news it had taken almost $44m. Naturally, more adventures for Rick and Evelyn in The Mummy Returns were requested that day.

But did Sommers ever think we’d be here 22 years on, with The Mummy still afforded so much affection? He’s clearly touched by the love he sees on social media. “At the time,

I was obviously hoping that it would do well. I loved making it. I was very proud of it. But it has become ‘beloved’. If a movie is beloved, you can watch it for the rest of your life. It’s your comfort food.” JG

MEET-CUTE Evelyn visits a bedraggled Rick in Cairo prison to ask for the location of Hamunaptra. “You wanna know?” he says, telling her to come closer. She leans in and he plants a smacker on her lips through the bars. “Then get me the hell out of here!”

BEST BANTZ

Rick: “Can you swim?”

Evelyn: “Well, of course I can swim, if the occasion calls for it.”

Rick: [throwing her overboard] “Trust me, it calls for it.”

FURTHER ADVENTURES The Mummy Returns (2001).

THE MUMMY TRILOGY IS AVAILABLE ON DVD, BLU-RAY, 4K UHD AND DOWNLOAD AND KEEP FROM AMAZON.