Mummy takes vengeance abroad

Hold tightly to your sarcophagus, Singapore, the Mummy is coming at you from Millersville.

Premier Rides Inc., a Millersville-based amusement and rides company, recently landed a $20 million contract to build The Revenge of the Mummy ride at the new Universal Studios theme park now being built in Singapore.

The contract is one of the largest associated with the new theme park, which is expected to open at the end of 2009.

It will be just like The Revenge of the Mummy ride by the same name at the Universal Studios theme park in Orlando, which was built by Premier Rides in 2004, said Beth Thompson, who is with the company.

Jim Seay, president of Premier Rides, said that ride is consistently recognized as one of the top attractions at the Orlando park because of its advanced special effects, animatronics and surround sound.

"It's that concept of riding the movie, so to speak," he said. "It peaks all your senses and really takes the idea of a ride to the next level."

The ride is based on "The Mummy" movies, the first of which was made in 1932 and starred actor Boris Karloff as Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian mummy who is accidentally brought back to life by a worker on a field expedition.

A 1999 remake of that movie starred Brendan Fraser as a field guide who leads an archaeologist, played by Rachel Weisz, into a lost Egyptian city, where she accidentally revives Imhotep. Annoyed, Imhotep retaliates by sending in the Biblical 10 plagues of Egypt, including locusts and turning water to blood, and attacking the archaeologists with fleets of flesh-eating scarabs.

Those scarabs play a big part in the ride, which takes riders through a story driven by an angry mummy.

"The mummy at times is attacking you, and you escape from the clutches of the mummy," Mr. Seay said. "You go into several adventures, then you're trying to escape and you go into this high-speed (roller) coaster experience."

About 150 to 200 people are feverishly at work on the engineering and manufacturing of the ride, which will have more advanced electronics than the Orlando version, he said.

The contract is with Resorts World at Sentosa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Genting International PLC.

The mummy ride will be a signature attraction at the Singapore park, he said.

The administration and design teams of Premier Rides are headquartered in Millersville because its founder fell in love with the Chesapeake Bay region, Mr. Seay said. The company has fabrication facilities near Salt Lake City and offices in Europe and Asia.

In the past, Premier Rides has built The Joker's Jinx ride at Six Flags America in Prince George's County, and the Italian Job Turbo Coaster at Kings Dominion in Doswell, Va.

In October, it announced it would build the Pepsi Globe Observation Wheel at the Meadowlands Xanadu complex in East Rutherford, N.J. At 268 feet, it will be the largest Ferris wheel in North and South America.