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LOS ANGELES(Reuters) - For those who do not know, summer arrives on Friday -- at least, in Hollywood -- when ``The Mummy Returns'' storms into theaters with no major competition, marking the start of the mega-hyped summer movie season.

The summer season accounts for some 40 percent of annual ticket sales, amounting last year to about $3 billion, from early May through the Labor Day holiday, of a roughly $7.7 billion box office total.

So, after recent weeks in which the big studios rolled out some big duds (''Town & Country'' and ``Crocodile Dundee III'', among them), Universal bows its big-time sequel to ``The Mummy'' which generated big box office traffic in 1999, unraveling a wad of about $414 million from moviegoers' pockets, globally.

Early research from ticket seller AOL Moviefone shows a healthy appetite for the new flick in which Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz reprise roles as daring adventurers with a nasty habit of raising Egyptian mummies from their tombs.

Sixty-three percent of those people polled by AOL Moviefone were aware of ``Mummy Returns'' and 37 percent of that group said they would definitely see the movie.

``For lack of a better phrase, it is going to sandblast everything out there,'' said Russ Leatherman, founder of AOL Moviefone. ``It's the first big-action, epic, effects-driven movie of the summer.''

Leatherman said his numbers indicate a box office take of as much as $40 million or more for the opening weekend, which would be a large sum for any movie's opening.

This time in ``Mummy Returns,'' the year is 1933 and former legionnaire Rick O'Connell (Fraser) and Egyptologist Evelyn (Weisz) are now married. They have a son named Alex and live in England where Evelyn works for the British Museum of London.

Eight years have blown by since they first raised the evil Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) from his dusty tomb, but eight years weren't enough to keep him there. An expedition to Egypt has yielded Imhotep's cloth-wrapped mummy and taken him back to the British Museum where he is raised from the dead.

Director Sticks To Original Formula

But a bigger problem quickly surfaces when ancient Egypt's ''Scorpion King,'' a half man/half monster-sized scorpion played by professional wrestler The Rock, is brought to life, too.

As Egyptian folklore has it, the Scorpion King and the legions of soldiers under his control will one day emerge from their sandy graves to conquer the world. Imhotep gets wind of the Scorpion King's return, and he rushes to Egypt to be the leader of the Scorpion King's vast army.

Imhotep's one big mistake -- and every big summer movie has to have at least one, big summer-sized mistake -- is to kidnap the O'Connell's son and take him to Egypt. Of course, the O'Connells must chase him in order to rescue their son, not to mention the fact they have to save the world, too.

The original ``Mummy'' came out of nowhere to wow audiences with its action, special effects and sense of humor, and the film's writer-director Stephen Sommers does not stray from the original formula.

The original cast returns with the addition of pop culture hero, The Rock, and the new movie has more special effects and more action than the first.

It's an auspicious beginning to what Hollywood hopes will be an auspicious summer filled with sequels, such as ``Jurassic Park III'' in July and ``American Pie 2'' in August.

For the next several weeks, audiences will get roughly one major release a week. May 11 sees the debut of ``A Knight's Tale'' followed by May 18's ``Shrek'' and the ultimate Summer 2001 tent pole movie, ``Pearl Harbor,'' on May 25.

By then, it will probably be time to put the wraps back on ''Mummy Returns.'' For now, that is, because if the 2nd version is as big as the first, moviegoers can bet ``Mummy 3'' will be only a couple of years from being unraveled, again, for movie fans.

Reuters/Variety REUTERS

Photos from The Mummy Returns
TheMummy.com

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