UNITED KINGDOM: Film director Stephen Sommers is remaking classic horror movie "The Mummy"

Record ID: 704672

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Film director Stephen Sommers is remaking classic horror movie "The Mummy"
  • Date: 17th August 1999
  • Summary: SHEPPERTON STUDIOS, LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (AUGUST 17, 1998) (REUTERS) SET BEING PREPARED BY STAGE HANDS FOR SHOOTING OF NEXT SCENE FIRST AND SECOND CAMERAS STANDING BY ACTRESS RACHAEL WEISZ HAVING MAKE UP TOUCHED UP BEFORE SCENE STUNT MEN RUNNING THROUGH STUNTS IN NEXT SCENE (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR STEPHEN SOMMERS SAYING: "I've never seen any oth
  • Embargoed: 1st September 1999 13:00
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  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Reuters ID: LVADN0FBWSRSQ4VAUP3O2BSQIXML
  • Story Text: Not content with any of the films spawned since Boris Karloff's legendary performance in the classic 1932 production of this film, director Stephen Sommers has chosen to combine horror with adventure when writing the nineties remake of "The Mummy".
    Reuters caught up with the writer/director and cast on the penultimate day of shooting at Shepperton studios in London.
    The original 'Mummy" story was written by Nina Wilcox Putnam and Richard Schayer in the early 1930's and following the success of director Karl Freund's version on film in 1932, numerous Universal pictures along the same theme, followed:
    "The Mummy's hand" (1940), "The Mummy's Tomb" (1942), "The Mummy's Ghost" (1944) and "The Mummy's Curse" (1945).Twenty years later, Britain's Hammer Films was given the licence to make "Curse of the Mummy's Tomb"(1964), "The Mummy's Shroud"
    (1966) and "Blood From The Mummy's Tomb" (1971), making international stars of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.
    But for director Stephen Sommers, the only film worth remembering is the original.
    "I've never seen any other Mummy movie but the Boris Karloff one.And I just loved it, it's the only one that really scared me as a kid - it scared the hell out of me.I like Frankenstein but Ifelt sorry for Frankenstein and Dracula was really sexy, the only one that scared me was "The Mummy".
    It scared the hell out of me.So I don't know its just fun.
    Also ancient Egypt, there's no better culture.The Greeks were close, the Romans were close, but there's nothing better than ancient Egypt," he said.
    Sommers' love of the original film is what led producers Jim Jacks and Sean Daniel from the independent production company Alphaville, to take him on.Having seen Sommers' previous work, "The Jungle Book", the producers summoned a meeting.With a big-budget movie in mind, Jacks and Daniel were convinced by Sommers' ideas of blending action-adventure with horror, not forgetting the 'Robin Hood' feel was exactly the direction the film needed to take.
    Sommers' story begins with Imhotep, High Priest of Osiris and Keeper of the Dead.He was put to death in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes during the reign of Pharoah Seti the First, for crimes against his king and fellow man.His rotting mummified body is destined to remain in a state of suspended animation - the undead - for all of eternity until.........it is discovered by accident when two groups of adventurers stumble across the ruins of Hamunaptra in 1925 and unwittingly unleash the awsome power of the evil creature.
    A long and desperate fight to save themselves and the world from the terrible curse created by Imhotep's regeneration, ensues.
    One of the groups is led by legionnaire Rick O'Connell, played by Brendan Fraser, who is joined by Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) an expert in ancient Egyptian, her roguish brother Jonathon (John Hannah) and the warden of Cairo prison (Omid Djalili), who agrees to save O'Connell from the hangman's noose, for a share of the Hamunaptra treasure.
    The other expedition consists of three Americans, Henderson (Stephen Dunham), Daniels (Corey Johnson) and Burns (Tuc Watkins), accompanied by an Egyptologist (Jonathan Hyde) and guided by the unscrupulous Beni (Kevin J.O'Connor) who has crossed swords with O'Connell on several occasions in the past.
    Trying to prevent the success of the two expeditions are the museum curator (Erick Avari) and Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr), the military leader of the cult-of-the-Mumia, both sworn to do all in their power to stop the evil high priest Imhotep from being reborn into this world.
    A plan hatched to kill the heroes before they do untold damage, fails and as Imhotep's powers manifest, one by one the American explorers fall victim to the creature's horrifying curse.They are forced to ally themselves with O'Connell in their desperate attempt to prevent Imhotep's final regeneration.
    The group manages to survive the ten plagues of Egypt, a crashing World War One bi-plane, sandstorms and more but the question is.....'will they be in time to save Evelyn fron the ultimate sacrifice...?'
    "The Mummy" was shot partly in Morocco and partly in studios in south west London, factors which persuaded actor Brendan Frasier, that he definitely wanted to be a part of a project like this.
    "We were in North Africa and also here we are at Shepperton studios in London so we got the raw work done in the field and now we're honing it in an excellent studio facility and I wanted to be a part of a film making process that encompasses huge elements of film making and it's a great deal of fun too.It's a dynamic part, I'm working with a great cast," Fraser said.
    Aside from the often difficult working conditions, it's not too hard to work out which location actress Rachel Weisz preferred.
    "We went out to the desert which was nothing, there was nothing there just one hotel where we all stayed and beautiful sand dunes and that's where we had to do camel racing so we had to learn in Marakesh, we had to learn how to gallop camels, which is actually really hard.We spent two weeks having our crash course in camel racing.Camels are really, really fast, they have a really unsteady seat and I guess one of the most memorable things we did the camel race this huge long sequence we did racing across the dunes together, the whole cast," she said.
    But, for Hannah, it was the friendliness of the cast and crew combined with a great script which made the project worthwhile.
    "I think Steve's got to take a lot of the credit for putting together a company which is essentially without ego, a company that just naturally gets on and that's not just the actors, that's the crew and everybody because those people can often have characteristics which wouldn't necessarily be advantageous in a situation where you're filming under terrible pressure of heat and of sunlight and doing night shoots and sand storms and you've got snakes and scorpions to avoid and the old Montezuma's revenge [stomach upset] is never very far away," he revealed.
    For a film which models itself on "Raiders of the Lost Ark" with its romance, action-packed scenes and horror, this film is set to run and run.
    Brendan Fraser has appeared recently in "George of the Jungle", based on the 1960's Tarzan spoof created by Jay Ward.
    He completed filming "Blast From The Past" and was seen in 1998 in "Gods and Monsters" starring Sir Ian McKellan.
    Rachel Weisz although relatively new to the silver screen has already notched up some worthy credits.Her films include Mark Pellington's "Going All The Way", Andrew Davis' "Chain Reaction", Bernard Bertolucci's "Stealing Beauty" and "The Land Girls".
    John Hannah has come a long way since working as an electrician and part-time barrow boy in Glasgow.His most recent success was the film "Sliding Doors" in which he co-starred opposite Gwyneth Paltrow.He was awarded the Scottish BAFTA as Best Actor for his performance in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and won the Best Actor Award at the Stockholm Film Festival for his performance in "Madagascar Skin".
    "The Mummy" is due to be released in cinemas in the summer of 1999.
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