The Scorpion King is a 2002 American action film directed by Chuck Russell, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Kelly Hu, Grant Heslov, and Michael Clarke Duncan. It is a prequel/spin-off to The Mummy trilogy, and follows the story of Mathayus the Scorpion King, the character featured in The Mummy Returns.
The events of The Scorpion King take place 5,000 years before those in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, and reveal Mathayus' origins and his rise to power as the Scorpion King. The name is a reference to a historical king of the Protodynastic Period of Egypt, King Scorpion.