While Dwayne Johnson's movie The Scorpion King is fiction, a figure in Egyptian history known as King Scorpion did exist. The Scorpion King was released in 2002, one year after Johnson made his debut in The Mummy Returns, the second movie in The Mummy franchise. While Johnson played a villain in The Mummy Returns, the character of Mathayus was a hero in The Scorpion King. The timeline can be confusing, but the version of Mathayas that Johnson plays in The Scorpion King is actually the grandfather of his character in The Mummy Returns, and is set thousands of years before.

Even though The Scorpion King only holds a 40% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film made $180 million at the box office on a $60 million budget and cemented Johnson as a leading man in Hollywood. Therefore, audiences were clearly intrigued by Johnson's character in The Scorpion King. While Johnson did not return for any future movies,...