REINCARNATED BIGGER AND SCARIER, `MUMMY SEQUEL HAD SPECIAL EFFECTS CREW SCRAMBLING TO THE END.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

When Stephen Sommers' phone rang at 6 a.m. the morning after his popcorn adventure movie ``The Mummy'' opened in theaters, he figured it was going to be good news.

Even though he had been out with his cast and crew late the night before, hopping between theaters in Santa Monica, Westwood and Marina del Rey, listening to the audiences whoop and holler and then going out to a restaurant and doing a little whooping and hollering of his own, Sommers still managed to answer the phone on the second ring.

On the line was Universal Pictures president Ron Meyer. The news: ``The Mummy'' had opened pretty darn well. He predicted it would clear $44 million by the end of the weekend.

And one other thing: Could Sommers start work on a new ``Mummy'' movie by, say, Monday?

Sommers obviously wasn't averse to the idea, since his sequel, ``The Mummy Returns,'' hits theaters today, nearly two years to the day that ``The Mummy'' opened. The new movie returns the same cast - Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz as anthropological adventurers Rick and Evelyn (now married), John Hannah as the wisecracking comic relief, Oded Fehr as the mysterious desert sage and Arnold Vosloo as the powerfully evil Imhotep - and adds a couple of characters for good measure.

Newcomers include a plucky kid, the offspring of Rick and Evelyn, as well as another villain, the Scorpion King, played by World Wrestling Federation superstar the Rock.

With 360 computer-generated effects shots supplied by Industrial Light & Magic, ``The Mummy Returns'' certainly is more expensive than its predecessor. Sommers, rather unconvincingly, lists an $88 million price tag, quickly adding that ``everyone lies about these things.''

More truthful is this comment from the writer-director: ``It's easier to make it bigger. Making it better is the hard part.''

Neither Sommers nor Meyer nor anyone involved in the original ``Mummy'' ever thought there would be a sequel. The movie was a left-field hit, opening the first Friday in May 1999, four weeks after ``The Matrix'' phenomenon and nine days before the new ``Star Wars'' series entry, ``The Phantom Menace.''

``Everyone thought 'Star Wars' was going to kill us,'' Sommers remembers.

Instead, ``The Mummy'' became a certified moneymaker, a cornball B-movie in the tradition of Universal's old horror flicks that somehow managed to gross $155 million in North America and $414 million worldwide.

None of the cast members was signed for a sequel, somewhat surprising since studios typically lock down actors in action-adventure movies for future films. (Even Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue were contractually obligated to make another ``Saint'' movie if the first one had caught on with audiences.) That meant negotiations and bigger paydays: Frasier made $12.5 million for starring in ``The Mummy Returns.''

Sommers had a simple goal for the sequel. He wanted to make the movie a little more scary and a little less broad. Otherwise, he wanted to keep everything more or less the same, saying, ``Too many sequels make the mistake of changing the tone dramatically, and the audience leaves saying, 'This isn't what I wanted to see.' ''

Nobody who loved the first ``Mummy'' will likely leave the theater dismayed over the direction of the second one. Sommers, working with ILM effects supervisor John Berton, has created several new species for the sequel, including Anubis warriors (sort of 9-foot walking Dobermans) and an irate band of pygmy mummies. There's also a mutant scorpion-Rock creature in the finale that Berton promises ``will leave people in disbelief.''

The ILM crew's 150 full-time effects people were in disbelief as recently as a couple of months ago when they looked at the amount of work they still had to complete. When Sommers started writing the movie, he was constantly calling ILM, asking if they could create a particular creature. If they said ``yes,'' he went back to the drawing board. If they had no idea how to do it, Sommers would ask them to give him a timetable. Invariably, the timetable butted against the film's May 4 release date.

``There was a pretty major freakout,'' Berton says. ``The deadlines are harsh and it's very, very stressful work. We honestly didn't know if we could get it all done. But ILM has always delivered on time, and knowing that kept us from going crazy. We knew some way or another that we'd make it.''

They did, but most of the film's major effects sequences were finished with only a couple of weeks to spare. In addition to creating the mutant scorpion, the hordes of regular scorpions, the angry Dobermans, the palaces of ancient Thebes and, yes, the pygmy mummies, Berton's ILM workers had to erase the usual wires, mummy stand-ins and, most comically, tourists.

While shooting a scene in Morocco's famous Todra Gorge, a group of 2,000 tourists congregated in the camera's line of vision, curious about the filming. Sommers asked if he could make them leave; local authorities declined to make that happen. Sommers then asked Berton if he could continue shooting and have ILM digitally erase the tourists in post-production.

``That's when you know you have power on the set,'' Berton jokes. It also underscores the essence of the ``Mummy'' movies as explained by actor John Hannah.

``These movies aren't about actors,'' Hannah says. ``Films are about actors. This is a movie, a big movie. And that means it can include wrestlers, models and body builders.''

The wrestler, the Rock (a k a Dwayne Johnson), will soon have his own ``Mummy'' spinoff called ``The Scorpion King.'' That movie takes the Rock's ``Mummy Returns'' character and turns him into a good guy, creating a conventional action picture more on the level of ``Conan'' than the effects-heavy ``Mummy'' movies. Universal has tentatively scheduled a Memorial Day 2002 release date.

``Movies aren't that different from wrestling,'' the Rock says. ``Both are heavily scripted.''

Meanwhile, there is no script for a third ``Mummy.'' Sommers is taking a vacation and has promised his wife he isn't going to make his next movie in some far-flung locale.

And if Meyer calls at 6 a.m. tomorrow?

``I might just have to put the phone off the hook,'' Sommers jokes.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) It's a Wrap

Sequel was a challenge, but special-effects crew delivered

(2 -- 3) Imhotep, top, commands a quartet of soldier mummies, while the Scorpion King (the Rock), above, relishes battle before an angry god changes his fate, in ``The Mummy Returns.''

(4) Arnold Vosloo, left, as Imhotep, teases Alex, (Freddie Boath) in ``The Mummy Returns.''