How the film "The Mummy" was filmed: footage from filming and interesting facts that many do not know about (16 photos)

Do you remember the cult film "The Mummy", released in 1999, where Brandon Fraser played the main role? Yes, at that time this film literally shocked the audience and even revived the audience’s interest in Egyptian mythology.





1. Director Stephen Sommers immediately called actor Brandon Fraser to play the lead role, as he liked the way he played in the film “George of the Jungle.” Stephen himself said that Brandon is exactly the kind of actor who seems to look brutal, but at the same time would not look serious in the role of O'Connell.



2. Actress Rachel Weisz, who played the female lead (Evie), had a negative attitude towards horror films and the like. But according to her, she decided to star in The Mummy because she liked the storyline about the unhappy love of Imhotep and Anxunamun.



3. The director wanted to shoot the film in Egypt in order to immerse himself even more in this whole atmosphere, but due to the difficult political situation in the country, it was decided not to risk it and shoot on location in Morocco.



4. Actress Rachel Weisz's reaction when rats were crawling on her was the most real. Well, this is not surprising, because real rats were running all over it.



5. The Hamunaptra set was built in the crater of a volcano. Naturally, the volcano was already extinct.

6. The scene with the mummification of Imhotep was filmed over several hours, which became a terrible torture for actor Arnold Vosloo, because all this time he could not move or serve himself, for example, simply drink some water.



7. During the scene with the hanging of the main character at the very beginning of the film, something went wrong, and the rope actually began to tighten around the actor’s neck. According to Brandon Fraser, while filming this scene, he felt suffocated and then lost consciousness. Well, the actor woke up in a hospital bed.



In general, it is very dangerous to film such scenes. At one time, Michael J. Fox was also seriously injured on the set of the film “Back to the Future 3” due to the fact that the rope actually tightened around his neck. Rumor has it that it was this incident that triggered his Parkinson's disease.



8. After the main characters survived the attack on the ship and swam to shore, actress Rachel Weisz’s shirt became wet and became almost transparent, causing all its details to show through. In order not to snatch a more adult rating, the effects specialists had to cover up the shirt with white on the computer.



9. The mummified guards were entirely computer generated, so poor Brandon Fraser had to kick the air during filming.



10. With a budget of 80 million dollars, the film grossed 415.9 million, which of course was a success. Therefore, the sequel was not long in coming.



11. Patricia Velasquez, who played Anxunamun, had to spend 4 hours every day in the dressing room. This is exactly how much time it took to apply gold paint to her body, create a hairstyle, do body painting, etc. Yes, everything we see on Anxunamun's body (except for the loincloth) is body art, not clothing items.



12. Remember the scene at the very beginning of the film when Evie accidentally causes a terrible mess in the library, knocking down all the bookshelves? It took the film crew a whole day to set everything up. And it would be a shame if the scene didn’t work out in the first take, since it was planned to shoot this scene in a single take without splicing. But actress Rachel Weisz managed to do everything in the first take.



13. The film's narrative begins with the voice of Medjay Ardeth Bey, played by actor Oded Fehr. It was originally planned that the voice-over would belong to Imhotep, but then the creators agreed that the ancient Egyptian priest could not speak English.



14. During filming in the Sahara Desert, all members of the film crew experienced a lot of inconvenience. Not only did sand seep into all places, including under underwear, but also local wildlife in the form of scorpions and snakes kept hanging around and attacking members of the film crew.



15. Despite the fact that the film was essentially an entertainment project with horror elements, the creators took the filming very seriously. Therefore, all the replicas that sound in the ancient Egyptian language were the most real. A learned Egyptologist was even hired specifically for this purpose.