In each issue of Egypt Revealed, read Omar Sharif's thoughts on ancient and modern Egypt. Our heroes, Evelyn and Rick, find this bracelet. That can be a really good thing or a really bad thing, depending on who gets there first. So it's sort of a race to find this lost oasis. Sommers did some digging of his own to come up with the new villain.
Scorpions are, after all, a threatening creature in Egyptian magic as well as real life.
The choice of 'The Rock' to play him at first sounds absurd, but when you think about it, it's somehow appropriate. Those early kings must have been pretty ruthless and in good shape if the Heb Sed was really performed, presumably with unfit kings sacrificed. The Heb Sed, described as a festival, supposedly occurred in the 30th year of a pharaoh's reign to test and renew the king's powers. Smith also notes that Early Dynastic burials typically included human sacrifices. Less subtle are all the folks with their heads cut off and placed between their legs and, of course, the appearance of the classic ritual slaying.