Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) carries the Book of Death to the altar as part of the ceremony to revive his beloved Anck-su-namun.

In between blowing up barges and watching an ancient city sink back into the sand, writer/director Stephen Sommers explains why he had always wanted to make a modern version of Universal's classic horror movie, The Mummy.

Shepperton Studios, just outside London. Heat from the giant fireball can be felt from the far side of the upper deck as the passenger barge erupts into a mass of burning wood. Amid the screams, O'Connell and Evelyn struggle up from the cabin area and race out onto the deck near where the horses are kept.

Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep.

A chunk of wall is blown off next to Evelyn's head. O'Connell pivots, firing behind him at the last of the black-clad Mumia warriors who is on the other side of the horses. The warrior and O'Connell exchange shots, as another lantern bursts into flames. The horses are in a frenzy. O'Connell shoots off the paddock lock and fires over the horses' heads: they charge forward and crash through the door. The Mumia warrior screams as the horses stampede over him.

Meanwhile, flames start to sweep up the walls and across the roof. The barge cannot stay afloat much longer. O'Connell turns to Evelyn. "Can you swim?" he asks. "Of course I can swim," she replies. "If the occasion calls for it." "Trust me," says O'Connell, picking her up and throwing her over the side. "The occasion calls for it."

"Cut!" shouts director Stephen Sommers, and the firemen rush in to douse the flames. The crew gathers round the video-assist monitor to watch the playback while the film's stars, Brendan Fraser (who plays O'Connell) and Rachel Weisz (Evelyn), brush themselves down and wait to see if another take is going to be needed.

Brendan Fraser as Captain Rick O'Connell.

This new version of Universal's classic 1932 motion picture, The Mummy, is a rousing and romantic action/adventure about an expedition of explorers seeking treasure in the Sahara in 1925. Fraser's O'Connell is a swashbuckling officer in the French Foreign Legion, whom we first meet in pitched battle with 3,000 Tuareg warriors who, for some reason, object to his efforts to explore - and probably plunder - Hamunaptra, the legendary City of the Dead. Rachel Weisz's Evelyn is the spirited antiquarian who subsequently hires O'Connell to find this same city, but with more noble archaeological aims in mind. Also in the cast are John Hannah as Evelyn's ne'er-do-well brother, Jonathan, and Kevin J O'Connor as Beni, a Hungarian hanger-on whom Sommers describes as "a complete sleazebag: a lying, cheating, thieving back-stabber".

Of course, when this motley crew finally reach Hamunaptra, they find a lot more than archaeological remains. Stumbling upon an ancient tomb, they unwittingly unleash a 3,000-year-old legacy of terror, embodied in the vengeful regeneration of Imhotep (fans of the original Boris Karloff movie will be pleased to know the new version uses many of the same character names), an Egyptian priest who had been sentenced to an eternity as one of the living dead.