When The Mummy Returns was released in 2001, the movie had the notable film debut of WWE wrestler, The Rock. His scenes were more of a wrap-around story device that bookends the movie with a prologue and the finale as the Scorpion King. The Rock would never actually meet his co-stars that played the characters who had journeyed to stop him, as his presence in his final end sequence was of a monstrous form of half-man, half-scorpion. The CGI, even at the time, was criticized for looking sub-optimal and has current notoriety of bad special effect filmmaking.
But Brendan Fraser, the star of the film, will not take the criticism anymore. Variety reports that Fraser recently did a GQ profile, where he reflected on the movie and acknowledged the reputation of the CGI. However, he was quick to point out that it was not done to the best of the artists’ ability and appealed to people’s sympathy on their behalf.
I never met Dwayne until after the premiere because he was a piece of tape on a stick that we referred to. Of course, they put him in CGI later. I know, I know. Be kind! The guys who did the CGI of the Scorpion King, [I saw them] at the premiere, and they were like, ‘Hey, how are you? We did the Scorpion King CGI. Yeah, we needed a little more time. It was very last minute.’ Some of the charm of it now is…it could get remastered, I guess, but it wouldn’t be as fun if you didn’t see this janky video game character of Dwayne. It’s somehow just perfect how it works.”
Although Fraser and Dwayne Johnson didn’t actually meet until the premiere of the movie, but even with the limited time spent together, Johnson was very moved by the reception Fraser has recently been getting with his performance in the upcoming film, The Whale. Johnson posted additional support on Twitter, “Man, this makes me so happy to see this beautiful ovation for Brendan,” Johnson wrote on Twitter. “He supported me coming into his ‘Mummy Returns’ franchise for my first-ever role, which kicked off my Hollywood career. Rooting for all your success, brother, and congrats to my bud [director] Darren Aronofsky.”