Imhotep was the imposing bad guy we all loved to hate. The real-life Imhotep, however, is a figure worthy of admiration, who did a whole lot to support the growth of Egypt. Considering his characterization in the film, it’s ironic that the name “Imhotep” actually means “one who comes in peace.” Imhotep was a Pharaoh’s chancellor, and it was said that he was the architect of the first pyramids, one of which was the Pyramid of Djoser.
People in ancient times believed that Imhotep came from the gods, because of his unparalleled talent. He was actually not just a celebrated architect, but also a community physician. Imagine how he might’ve reacted if he’d been told that, thousands of years in the future, he would be portrayed as a vengeance-seeking, world-destroying mummy?
What A Sight!
We all know that Imhotep was one powerful dude, not to be messed with. Who else could raise a sandstorm in the desert? Though he did fall apart (quite literally) when faced with an innocent little cat! During the filming of the desert sandstorm scene, the camera operator struggled to capture the magnitude of the storm from the angle he was required to shoot Arnold Vosloo’s back.
The wind machines kept blowing Vosloo’s cape up. Not only did this get in the way of capturing the scene, it revealed far more of Vosloo’s back side than the camera operator was willing to see. Poor guy!
A Swarm of Locusts
No self-respecting fan of The Mummy could possibly forget that locust swarm scene. If we were to tell you that scene had to be shot over and over again before they finally got the deceptively simple footage they needed, you’d likely imagine the issue was something to do with the difficulties of locust-wrangling.
In actual fact, the reason that scene took so much time and agony to capture was due to the cameras. They just couldn’t focus on the small, fast-moving locusts. Yet it was essential to capture the face of Jonathan Hydes being drowned by a swarm of locusts in epic detail! Confounding the issue, was the fact that Hydes (very understandably) struggled to stay calm and in character with locusts crawling all over him. Funny that!
Another Sommers Gag
To protect them during the filming they conducted out in the field, the production team gained support from the local Moroccan army. As a result, they all felt safe for the duration of their shoot. But Stephen Sommers had a surprise for the cast and crew. He secretly omitted the added expense of kidnapping insurance for his cast and crew!
The wily director waited until they’d finished shooting to reveal that secret. Can you imagine their faces when Sommers announced his dirty, little secret? Thankfully nothing went wrong while they were all so unprotected.
Hospital Bills
The crew flew all the way to the Sahara to capture the best settings for their film. It was sand all around and dehydration was the antagonist in the actors’ real lives. The medical team made sure they had all the bases covered. They prepared a special concoction for the cast and crew to drink every two hours. Just as Imhotep had his hordes of zombie minions, dehydration had its own allies.
Apart from the unpleasant combination of sand and wind, the whole team had to contend with a variety of desert creatures on a daily basis. They met the otherworldly spiders, scorpions, and snakes that occupy the barren desert dunes. A significant number of crew members had to be flown away from the set after being bitten, and much of the film’s budget went to hospital bills.