Stephen Sommers' 1999 feature was an enjoyable, if overlong, romp recounting the struggles of an adventurer and his companions to stop the apocalyptic agenda of an ancient Egyptian priest. The other, a prequel called The Scorpion King, will be released either later this year or next year, depending on how Universal arranges its release schedule. The Mummy Returns, which re-unites nearly the entire cast from the 1999 movie, is the first of these two productions.
However, long before the worldwide gross crept close to $400 million, Universal had already put two additional Mummy films into the hopper, awarding the series the "franchise" label. The studio had expected it to be profitable, but not that profitable. Then on May 18, DreamWorks will open its animated comedy Shrek and a week later, Buena Vista will open its highly anticipated Pearl Harbor.įrom then on, the summer audiences will face the might of such mega-pictures as AI Artificial Intelligence (Warner Bros), Planet Of The Apes (Fox), Atlantis: The Lost Empire (Buena Vista), Evolution (DreamWorks), America's Sweethearts (Sony/Revolution), Tomb Raider (Paramount), Dr Dolittle 2 (Fox), Scary Movie 2 (Dimension), Cats And Dogs (Warner Bros), Rush Hour 2 (New Line), Jurassic Park 3 (Universal), American Pie 2 (Universal) etcįilm (Distributor) International distribution Estimated weekend gross Estimated total to dateġ (-) The Mummy Returns (Universal) UIP $70.1m -Ģ (1) Driven (Warner Bros) Franchise Pictures $6.1m $21.6mģ (2) Bridget Jones' Diary (Miramax) Universal/UIP/StudioCanal $6m $44.7mĤ (3) Spy Kids (Dimension) Miramax International $4m $98.5mĥ (4) Along Came A Spider (Paramount) UIP $3.8m $60mĦ (5) Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles (Paramount) Kathy Morgan International $3.2mħ (6) Blow (New Line) New Line International $2.4mĨ (8) The Forskaken (Screen Gems) Columbia TriStar $1.5mĩ (9) Joe Dirt (Columbia) Columbia TriStar $1.5mġ0 (11) One Night At McCools (USA Films) Good Machine International $1.The 1999 remake of the horror classic The Mummy surprised Universal Pictures with its box office success. Next weekend's only opener is Columbia's medieval action comedy A Knight's Tale starring Australian heartthrob Heath Ledger and directed by Brian Helgeland. The Mummy Returns also opens a summer season which will be looking to improve on last year's erratic results, which lacked consistency and ended up down on the previous summer. The Mummy Returns accounted for some 70% of the weekend's box office. The remaining movies in the top ten hardly got a look in, however, with Franchise Pictures' Driven falling over 50% to $6.1m in its second weekend at number two. On the back of The Mummy Returns, the box office for the weekend was up some 32% from the same weekend last year when Gladiator opened. Reviews were generally poor for the film, but this is one instance where a film is cheerily review-proof. Also starring is wrestling champion The Rock as The Scorpion King, a character which has already spawned a spin-off movie of its own. The Mummy opened with $43.4m in the same weekend opening slot in 1999 and went on to take over $400m worldwide, so the success of the second had been predicted and had merited the $100m lavished on its production budget, although quite such a big opening was not as easy to guess.Īgain directed by Stephen Sommers, The Mummy Returns pits Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and John Hannah against the evil mummy Imhotep played by Arnold Vosloo. The film also broke records for biggest Friday and Saturday single day grosses of $23.4m and $26.8m respectively. Playing in 3,401 theatres, The Mummy Returns had a site average of $20,612, less than the $22,000 averaged by both The Lost World and The Phantom Menace which played in fewer theatres. Only one film - Universal's own The Lost World: Jurassic Park - had a bigger three-day take of $72m in 1997 Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace took $64.8m in 1999 for third place. Universal Pictures celebrated the second biggest opening in cinema history at the North American box office this weekend, as its adventure sequel The Mummy Returns grossed a spectacular estimated $70.1m.