How quickly does success breed imitation? In Hollywood, it takes about 48 hours. In the summer of 2000, Universal Pictures chairman Stacey Snider and production president Kevin Misher sat in Universal's eighth-floor screening room, checking out raw footage from the set of the sequel "The Mummy Returns." Onscreen, the wrestler The Rock ran around in a loincloth, ate a bug and spoke some Arabic. Snider and Misher knew they were witnessing the birth of a new action hero. They immediately dangled $5 million in front of The Rock to star in―let's see, what would you call it?―a prequel to the sequel. Fast as a sandstorm sweeps through the Valley of the Dead, "The Scorpion King" will blow into theaters this Friday and almost certainly be a smash, even before you factor in the promotional tie-ins, DVD sales and Universal theme-park ticket sales. "This is one of the only movies I can think of that was completely engineered to extend the franchise," Snider says. "We acted―I don't want to say recklessly, but certainly precipitously."
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