Stories from the set

The voice-over at the beginning of the film was originally intended to belong to Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), and director Stephen Sommers only much later noticed that an ancient Egyptian priest could not speak English and gave that honor to Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr).

The first plans for a film that would be a loose remake of the 1932 picture starring Boris Karloff appeared with producer James Jacks back in 1992. At that time, Universal Pictures gave the project the green light on the condition that the budget would not exceed 10 million dollars, expecting to get a low-budget horror franchise. Clive Barker was invited to take the director's chair, but after several meetings with the studio management, both sides temporarily lost interest in the picture. George Romero was considered as the next candidate, but the producer and the studio deemed his style too scary for a wide audience.

The studio's next choice was Joe Dante, who insisted on increasing the budget and wanted to invite Daniel Day-Lewis for the role of the mummy monster. In his version, the plot unfolded in the present day, focusing on reincarnation and the main love line. However, at that moment Universal Pictures was ready to splurge only 15 million dollars and rejected the director's proposed interpretation of the picture. Following this, Mick Harris was confirmed in the director's chair, but he soon dropped out of the project, and Wes Craven, who received an invitation, declined it. Only in 1997 did director Stephen Sommers propose to producer James Jacks his vision of the film, which found full support and understanding from the studio management, who had been replaced before that due to several major failures. The idea of a picture in the style of Indiana Jones and the classic adventure genre "Jason and the Argonauts" with a mummy as the main opponent of the heroes appealed to the studio so much that it agreed to increase costs from 15 to 80 million dollars.

The role in the film (the prison warden who makes a deal with Evelyn) was the film debut of Iranian-born British actor and comedian Omid Djalili.

During the scene where the crowd summoned by Imhotep chants in Ancient Egyptian, the extras began replacing their assigned line during rehearsals with "Ohwhatanarseyouare" – a vulgar remark in English. The same thing happened on the final take and made it into the final version of the film, going completely unnoticed by the crew.

Brendan Fraser lost consciousness while filming the scene where his character is hanged and nearly died because the rope around his neck was pulled too tight.

The nightgown worn by Evelyn during the attack on the ship became transparent when it got wet and was later painted over using computer graphics during post-production.

The scenes set in the prison were filmed entirely in one of the residential complexes in Marrakesh.

When the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun was found on November 4, 1922, the excavation was led by George Herbert, Earl of Carnarvon, and his daughter, Lady Evelyn Carnarvon, took part in it alongside him. According to the original concept, the film's main heroine was supposed to be the daughter of the cursed Lord Carnarvon, Evelyn, but later her surname was changed to Carnahan, and the only reference to this storyline became Evelyn's words to Rick that her father was a "very famous explorer."

An Egyptologist was specially invited to participate in the filming, who was to demonstrate to the actors by his own example the correct pronunciation of individual ancient Egyptian words and entire phrases.