Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was a blast, and when expectations were so ridiculously high for the sequel, it's easy to overlook how mind-blowing The Illuminati's presence really was.
Along with Sir Patrick Stewart as Professor X, we got to see a live-action Captain Carter, a new Captain Marvel courtesy of Lashana Lynch's Maria Rambeau Variant, and the MCU debuts of Mister Fantastic and Black Bolt. Both characters looked like they'd just stepped straight out of the comic books, but we recently learned that their costumes were entirely VFX.
You might wonder, then, why we asked the sequel's Costume Designer, Graham Churchyard, about their suits. Well, we were curious how it felt to miss out on creating the costumes for two iconic characters, and he confirmed that both heroes were added to the movie very late in the day.
Expressing sympathy for the Doctor Strange sequel's VFX team, Churchyard confirms that there were lots of ideas about who to include in The Illuminati and reveals that the team's scenes were originally shot in London before reshoots took place in Los Angeles.
He also talks about creating Captain Marvel's new suit and teases a lot of deleted scenes featuring Maria heading into action that, unfortunately, ended up on the cutting room floor! You can find out more about those by watching our full interview with Graham in the player below:
I’ve read that Mister Fantastic and Black Bolt’s costumes were fully VFX creations, so were you disappointed not to get to work on two big MCU debuts here?
"Yeah, I feel sorry for Janek Sirrs that he had to shoehorn those in at the last moment. We had designs for other characters, and then we didn't have casting and there were travel bans. When we were shooting the Illuminati in London, actors like Sir Patrick couldn't come to London because of travel. Richie Palmer and everyone had a big wish list of like who was going to be in the Illuminati. When it came down to those two characters being settled on, it was then even too late to make something locally in Los Angeles. Just way too late and too close.
"It was probably too close for comfort for visual effects to really do that because up to that point, everything else had been physically there. All of Wanda when she's flying around Kamar Taj on a very elaborate wire rig that's like a spider that goes six ways that can pull you in different directions. Where possible, pretty much everything is physical in the costumes unless they say, 'Hey, the skirt is getting in the way of the rig.' It just gives visual effects one less thing to do out of the million things that they have to do in to bring these characters and enhance them in the way you see them.
"Lashana Lynch as Captain Marvel...we built that entirely from scratch. We start with a 3D scan in a photogrammetry booth, and then we work out a form of the person and start building the costume on top of that and sculpt things in the computer. We're then printing those out, moulding them, and then get to the point where we say, 'Let's bring the actor in for a fitting' and fine-tune it until you get something like that. I was really happy with Lashana's costume. The fit and performance, and she was able to fight. All I'm saying is a lot was cut and it's a very quick end for the Illuminati. We shot a tonne more, but maybe it'll be on the Blu-ray."
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now available on Digital and will be released on 4K, Blu-ray and DVD July 26.