Scene stealer: How ‘Ghost Town’ gained a mummy

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In ‘Ghost Town,’ stars Ricky Gervais and Téa Leoni bond over the mummified remains of the Egyptian pharaoh Pepi II. But production designer Howard Cummings had no idea just how much of an undertaking creating that single mummy body would turn out to be. Cummings and prop master Vinny Mazzarella spent days scouring the Internet, collecting books and subscribing to Egyptology magazines to find information on mummies, particularly the body of Ramses II, who served as Pepi’s model. They then had to have an authentic-looking body built from scratch, even though director David Koepp had just written the mummy-heavy ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.’ ‘I tried to go through their art department to find out who their mummy sources were,’ says Cummings, ‘but I didn’t have much luck. I don’t think Spielberg wanted us copying their mummy.’ The delivery of the resin-and-latex mummy, which ended up costing about $15,000 and had the texture of an old leather shoe, wasn’t the end of their work. Cummings was also tasked with creating a 4 1/2 -minute lecture on the mummy, complete with a 50-photo slide show, for Leoni’s character to deliver. ‘My crew was getting mad at me,’ Cummings says of the time-consuming research. ‘But the lecture had to make sense. I didn’t realize how much the mummy wove through the story.’

-- Patrick Kevin Day