Brendan Fraser went to bat for the “janky” CGI look of The Rock‘s Scorpion King character in The Mummy Returns. While looking back at his blockbuster career, Fraser recalled working on The Mummy sequel, which involved turning the wildly popular wrestler into a giant scorpion that he readily admits looks like a video game cut scene. However, Fraser argues that it gives the film a certain kind of kitsch.
“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,” Fraser told GQ. “It’s somehow just perfect how it works.”
That said, the actor met both The Rock and the CGI team at The Mummy Returns premiere, and they were extremely apologetic about the final product. Fraser used the moment to encourage people to be kind to CGI artists because time constraints have been a problem going back decades.
Via Variety:
“I never met Dwayne until after the premiere because he was a piece of tape on a stick that we referred to,” Fraser said. “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.’”
Fortunately, Fraser had experience dealing with burgeoning CGI effects in George of the Jungle. Although, apparently, the actor was not a favorite with the artists on that film because of the way he kept petting George’s elephant. If Fraser didn’t put his hand in exactly the right position, the whole shot would be ruined, so he tried to contain his over-eager petting as much as possible.
You can see Fraser reminisce about his filmography below:
(Via Variety)