Brendan Fraser had the chance to make a huge Hollywood comeback as Firefly, the main villain in Batgirl. Fans were crushed when President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav, announced the cancellation of the nearly-completed film. Batgirl would have marked Fraser's return to the film industry after his 14-year absence since The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.
While Batgirl's cancellation was saddening to both Fraser and supporters alike, something actually life-threatening involved the actor two decades before. As fans know, the 1999 film The Mummy was filled with dangerous weather and intimidating wildlife. In fact, Fraser even almost lost his life for a stunt in the early sequences of the film.
The Mummy served as the remake of the 1932 film with the same title. Stephen Sommers' action-adventure film follows adventurer Rick O'Connell, played by Fraser, and aspiring Egyptologist Evelyn Carnahan, played by Rachel Weisz in her breakthrough role. The pair set off on a quest after coming across a map that leads to the fictional Egyptian city of Hamunaptra. Although, Evie accidentally awakens a high priest named Imhotep by reading the Book of the Dead, and he starts to wreak destruction across the land.
At the beginning of The Mummy, Fraser's character is almost hanged in a Cairo prison. Since Fraser normally does his own stunts, he tried to make the hanging sequence look great on-screen, but the situation backfired. "I did get fully choked out. I regained consciousness and one of the EMTs was saying my name," Fraser revealed in a 20th-anniversary article for Entertainment Weekly.
Fraser recalled the terrifying experience began after Sommers wanted another take of the hanging sequence and asked for the tension to be increased on the rope. Fraser went up on the balls of his feet and subsequently lost consciousness. Weisz revealed Fraser even stopped breathing and needed CPR. Although, not everyone had a worrying reaction to the actor's near-death experience.
"The stunt coordinator came over and he said, 'Hi! Welcome to the club, bro! Ha ha ha!' And I was like I want to go home," Fraser said. Sommers even blamed Fraser for the almost fatal mishap. "I guess it cut off his carotid artery, or whatever, and knocked him out. He did it to himself," Sommers said. Fraser agreed with Sommers' opinion and affirmed he was really trying to sell the moment for the film. The take that made it into The Mummy is the same take Fraser almost lost his life for. This was why the cameras had to cut away since Fraser was unconscious moments later. To make matters worse, Fraser almost had a near-death encounter with a snake during The Mummy. Being an actor can sure have its dangerous moments.