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THE MUMMY RETURNS
Universal Pictures
presents an Alphaville production
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Prod: James Jacks, Sean Daniel; Exec prod: Bob Ducsay, Don Zepfel; Dir/Scr: Stephen Sommers; Ph: Adrian Biddle; Prod des: Allan Cameron; Vis f/x super: John Berton Jr; Sp f/x super: Neil Corbould; Cost des: John Bloomfield; Ed: Bob Ducsay; Mus: Alan Silvestri.
With Brendan Fraser (Rick O’Connell), Rachel Weisz (Evelyn O’Connell/Nefertiti), John Hannah (Jonathan), Arnold Vosloo (Imhotep), Oded Fehr (Ardeth Bay), Patfricia Velasquez (Meela/Anck-Su-Namun), Freddie Boath (Alex O’Connell), The Rock (Scorpion King), Adewale (Lock-Nah), Shaun Parkes (Izzy).
International distribution:
Universal Pictures/UIP.
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“The technology has improved vastly over the past two years,” adds visual effects supervisor John Berton Jr, of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), for whom the Scorpion King and his warriors presented a major challenge. But it wasn’t just that. “Imhotep has gotten a lot stronger since the first film,” points out Berton. “He does more than just scare people in this movie: he has interaction with them. So, there is more of a developed character in this film, and that adds a new challenge for us in terms of making his performance look real. For me, the hardest thing is the creatures, because you are trying to bring something to the screen that has an organic realism.”
Among the new elements added by writer/director Stephen Sommers are the Scorpion King, played by pro wrestler The Rock (far below); Rick and Evelyn’s son, Alex (previous page); and the fact that Evelyn had a prior existence as Queen Nefertiti
(previous page).
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This meant that the special effects team didn’t just come in at the end of the shoot and add in their magic: they had to keep careful track of everything that happened on location in Morocco and London, and on set at Shepperton Studios. “We needed to bring as much information to ILM as we could in order to rebuild the set in the computers,” says Berton. “We have a group of technicians we refer to as our ‘camera match-move team’ who track and measure the camera positions, which way they point, what the lenses are, everything. If the camera is moving, they know not only where it started and ended, but where it was in the middle and how fast it got there. All these things are really important for us to take a synthetic image and place it in the same space as the real image.”
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Sometimes, what Berton and his team came up with surprised even Arnold Vosloo. “It can be tricky for an actor because, for certain parts of the film, you are reacting to something you think you can imagine,” says the South African-born actor, who achieved international stardom as Imhotep. “But of course ILM’s imagination is far wilder than you can ever hope yours to be!”
Nor was Vosloo the only one who had difficulty keeping up with the imaginative verve and pace of the new film: Fraser found it hard to match Sommers’ energy, even if the director’s enthusiasm had been one of his reasons for wanting to do the second film.
The Scorpion King, played by pro wrestler The Rock
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“It’s hard to keep up with the guy,” he says. “He has such a passion for his work that it rubs off on everyone. His energy was tremendous, even in the fierce heat of the Sahara Desert. I think his metabolism probably spiked another hundred points on this shoot! Just like the first Mummy, this film is packed full of action, and now the dial has been turned up.
“And up again.”
“I think the confidence of knowing that the first movie worked so well allowed Steve to be bolder this time. Everything is bigger now - the stunts, the effects, the whole concept”
John Hannah
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