Marvel's latest big-screen outing, Eternals, is performing pretty well at the worldwide box office, officially passing 300 million. Although the reviews were split, it looks like being the lowest-rated MCU film is continuing to bring audiences back to the theater.
We had the chance to chat exclusively with the Weta Digital team that handled much of the film's effects. Both VFX Director Matt Aitken and Animation Supervisor Sidney Kombo-Kintombo spoke with us about many exciting aspects of the film and the post-production process.
The Weta Digital guys talked about how they put together the mid-credits scene with Eros and Pip the Troll, the evolving deviants, Kro, and Arishem, as well as the shots they worked on in the trailers and the Unimind sequence. However, one of the most exciting topics of conversation was Angelina Jolie and exactly how much work went into replacing her body throughout the film.
Check out the transcript below in which they explain in detail why and how they went through replacing Jolie's body and precisely what made it so much more complicated than the rest of their work on the battle scenes and the like. If you want to hear the chat for yourself, scroll down to the podcast player!
Animation Supervisor Sidney Kombo-Kintombo: The fact that to us, I think what was the hardest was Thena on the beach. You see her head, but her body is fully CG for most of the shots.
VFX Supervisor Matt Aitken: The only time we didn't do a body replacement was in the Aztec suit because they were happy with that. But they wanted to continue to refine the design of her superhero suit in post. So the first time that people got to see that, and I don't think anybody caught onto it, was in that teaser trailer where they do that shot on the headland above the beach where all ten of them kind of step in and line up towards the camera. So that's the first shot that we ever get in a teaser trailer of all ten Eternals in one frame, and we worked on that shot walking in.
It's Angelina Jolie's head, but her body is CG. Because she's so iconic, we wanted that to really be 100 percent. And we worked on that for a long time. That was probably the last trailer shot that we delivered. It's something that Marvel tasks us with from time to time. I mean, Eros' costume was completely CG as well because they wanted to continue to make changes to that and refine that.
Animation Supervisor Sidney Kombo-Kintombo: I just wanted to say that making sure we are replacing the body of somebody like Angelina Jolie, for instance, or any other character, feels simple; it may look simple, but it's incredibly hard.
Because we need to make sure that you don't feel as an audience that is somebody else performing what she's doing. And that all the connection of her neck and the rest of her body is working. So, funnily enough, in the midst of all that action, the replacement of Angelina Jolie's body was the hardest part.
What do you guys think of these comments from Weta Digital's VFX and Animation Supervisors? Did you notice that Angelina Jolie's body was CG?
You can hear the full interview with Matt Aitken and Sidney Kombo-Kintombo below, so check it out and be sure to share your thoughts in the usual spot!
The focus of this interview is the newest Marvel film, Eternals. Speaking with Weta Digital's VFX Supervisor and Animation Supervisor Sidney Kombo-Kintombo. We go into detail about how they did the effects in the film, including Angelina Jolie's character of Thena being CGI apart from her face for the entire film, the evolution of the deviants, the scenes with Arishem, and the focus on each of the Eternals' celestial powers.
Excitingly, we also spoke about the popular mid-credits scene in Eternals in which Harry Styles and Patton Oswalt are introduced as Eros and Pip the Troll respectively. We learned about how the actors were riffing and ad-libbing in the scene and how Patton Oswalt wasn't even short enough - he had to act on his knees! I think you guys will learn a lot with this one, and Matt and Sidney are awesome guys to speak with and did an incredible job with the cinematics.
Marvel's Eternals is now playing in theaters.