Cupar-based business makes props for new Tarzan film

Samuel L Jackson and Alexander Skarsgard in the new Tarzan film (PA)

CARL MORENIKEJI is the owner of vintage furniture and bag specialist, Scaramanga.

The Cupar-based business sells unique leather satchels made in India, as well as all sorts of retro furniture pieces.

Back in 2012 Carl was surprised to be approached by a film company looking for some vintage props.

But this was no local TV outfit – it was for a big Hollywood production, Tim Burton film Dark Shadows.

Carl managed to get exactly what the movie people were after, and word soon spread that he was a reliable source for props from the past.

Since then he’s been called upon to provide all sorts of things for film and television productions.

He’s seen his antique locks appearing Bilbo Baggins’s home in The Hobbit, found more than 100 medieval-looking pieces for Disney’s Maleficent and even sourced scores of vintage padlocks for a recent series of Big Brother.

And now he’ll be keeping his eyes peeled for more of his objects on the big screen in major Hollywood blockbuster The Legend Of Tarzan, which was released last week.

Six of Scaramanga’s vintage trunks will be seen around the world in the $180m action drama starring Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård.

The role for Carl’s furniture came about when he got a call on a Friday in June 2014 from a props buyer who’s a regular customer and previously bought one of Scaramanga’s leather bags for Tom Cruise to use in Edge Of Tomorrow.

He urgently needed six vintage trunks by the following Tuesday for a scene in which the mining camp of the Belgian villains is stampeded by wildebeest directed by Tarzan.

They had to be plain and priced as competitively as possible . . . because they were to be destroyed in the scene!

Although Scaramanga specialises in antique trunks, chests and boxes, Carl had to phone round his sources to get some of the trunks because the ones they keep in stock mostly have decorative features.

It was a tall order – and a very short deadline.

But amazingly he was able to track some down and even get the order to Warner Brothers’ Leavesden Studios in Hertfordshire the same day!

Now Carl and his team are looking forward to seeing their trunks in 3D on the big screen… if only briefly before the wildebeest destroy them!

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