SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME - One Member Of The Sinister Five Never Actually Stepped Foot On Set

SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME - One Member Of The Sinister Five Never Actually Stepped Foot On Set

Spider-Man: No Way Home's VFX Supervisor Kelly Port has revealed that at least one of the movie's villains never actually showed up to set and were instead brought to life solely with visual effects...

By JoshWilding - Jan 04, 2022 06:01 AM EST
Filed Under: No Way Home
Source: befores & afters

It's easy to forget that Spider-Man: No Way Home was shot in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this seems to have limited how much certain actors could contribute to the blockbuster. We've already pointed out that the shots of Rhys Ifans as Dr. Curt Connors and Thomas Haden Church as Flint Marko were lifted from The Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 3, and there may be a good reason why.

During a recent interview with before & afters, the threequel's VFX Supervisor Kelly Port was asked if the team working on Spider-Man: No Way Home had access to facial capture for Sandman. "Well, we had his voice," she confirmed. "We weren’t able to get a lot of visuals on him, but we were able to get his voice for sure and we got scans and textures and things like that."

In other words, Haden Church was never actually on set, which obviously explains why Marvel Studios played around with that Spider-Man 3 footage and repurposed it for this movie. 

Elsewhere in the interview, Port addressed the balance of finding ways to make Sandman look like fans remember while doing something new with the villain. "There were two parts to him, where he’s more humanoid and talking, and when he is in the sanctum. Digital Domain did a lot of that work. And then Luma did the sequence that we called the power line corridor, which is where Sandman is first introduced."

"Then Imageworks, for the end battle, they did the much bigger Sandman with big FX sims. I remember when we were first interviewing companies, there’s a little bit of collective post-traumatic stress disorder with anyone who had previously worked on Sandman. And so I knew that going in, I had a feeling this was going to be challenging both technically and creatively, just to get that character looking right and behaving right. I think it looked pretty cool."

The VFX used on Sandman way back in 2007 were pretty groundbreaking, and bringing him back to life without Haden Church being present is an amazing feat. It's surprising to learn motion-capture wasn't used for his scenes when he's humanoid in appearance, and even more shocking that the actor's likeness was recreated after the fact with only his voice as a guide for the VFX teams.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is now playing in theaters. 

Tom Holland Shares Disappointment With SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME - I Might Have Done Three Days On Location
Related:

Tom Holland Shares Disappointment With SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME - "I Might Have Done Three Days On Location"

SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME Star Charlie Cox Recalls Cut Reference To 2003's DAREDEVIL During His MCU Debut
Recommended For You:

SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME Star Charlie Cox Recalls Cut Reference To 2003's DAREDEVIL During His MCU Debut

DISCLAIMER: As a user generated site and platform, ComicBookMovie.com is protected under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and "Safe Harbor" provisions.

This post was submitted by a user who has agreed to our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. ComicBookMovie.com will disable users who knowingly commit plagiarism, piracy, trademark or copyright infringement. Please CONTACT US for expeditious removal of copyrighted/trademarked content. CLICK HERE to learn more about our copyright and trademark policies.

Note that ComicBookMovie.com, and/or the user who contributed this post, may earn commissions or revenue through clicks or purchases made through any third-party links contained within the content above.

Cap1
Cap1 - 1/4/2022, 6:22 AM
Honestly I found the VFX in Spider-Man 3 more impressive than here. Whenever he was in NWH it took me out of the film. A little more time refining him would’ve worked wonders
KWilly
KWilly - 1/4/2022, 6:46 AM
@Cap1 - Say what you want about Spider-Man 3, but it had some top notch CGI for its time. Heck, even now it looks great for the most part.

Sandman in NWH was just an obvious CGI fill, and they probably were racing against the clock, so it's all good.

But this scene was splendid...



Cap1
Cap1 - 1/4/2022, 6:59 AM
@KWilly - Yeah, it still standing the test of time to this day is a testament to how good it was. Man that scene is heartbreaking. Love how his face doesn't look human there either. Despite Spider-Man 3's faults, Raimi nails the emotional weight
Whaley87
Whaley87 - 1/4/2022, 7:34 AM
@Cap1 - I honestly can't say I agree. The VFX in No Way Home were pretty phenomenal, so comparing it with 15 year old VFX is pretty weird, the majority of VFX from Spider-Man 3 have dated pretty terribly. The Sandman/Peter subway fight being a notable contender for the worst VFX shot in that movie.
Cap1
Cap1 - 1/4/2022, 7:39 AM
@Whaley87 - I didn’t say the VFX in NWH were bad, just that they weren’t so good in when it came to Sandman. Comparing VFX of the same character isn’t weird at all. The graphics in Spider-Man 3 were unprecedented, never mind phenomenal
TheHumanSpider2
TheHumanSpider2 - 1/4/2022, 7:58 AM
@KWilly - Raimi used both CGi and real sand for this scene
TheManWithoutFear
TheManWithoutFear - 1/4/2022, 6:27 AM
I still don't really understand why Sandman was there. He doesn't have beef with Spidey. Not evil, doesn't necessarily need curing. And he doesn't die in the Raimi-verse so they could have just sent him home.
GwenLantern
GwenLantern - 1/4/2022, 6:46 AM
@TheManWithoutFear - I don't understand why he was locked up, but Peter didn't want to lock Norman up. What's the difference?
Also, Doc Ock and Electro were being cool. They didn't really need restraining any more than Norman, either.
KWilly
KWilly - 1/4/2022, 6:47 AM
@TheManWithoutFear - It's like the writers didn't watch Spider-Man 3, lol. Same with Lizard, he was just arrested.
bkmeijer2
bkmeijer2 - 1/4/2022, 6:51 AM
@TheManWithoutFear @KWilly - I guess they just wanted a villain from each movie
AC1
AC1 - 1/4/2022, 7:00 AM
@GwenLantern - Sandman started freaking out when he realised he was helping a different Peter than the one he knew, so I feel like Peter made the quick decision to send him to the sanctum rather than have another lengthy fight, having only just caught Electro. Peter had every intention of capturing Norman too, until he saw that Norman was scared and confused and clearly mentally ill, and seeing Aunt May looking after him made him feel like he'd made a mistake capturing the others too, which is what sets him on the road to helping them.

Doc Ock definitely wasn't being cool, he was on a rampage on that bridge and would've killed a lot of innocent people if Peter hadn't stopped him with his nanotech, which he kept using to restrain Ock until he and Norman had built him a new inhibitor chip and restored his more rational personality.

As for Electro, I think that kinda goes back to Peter being focused on sending them home without really understanding them first. Again, once he meets Norman he starts to become more compassionate towards them all, which is why he decides to try and cure them before sending them home.

But Electro was also arguably the most dangerous of them all, and was also pretty clearly the one who most wanted to stay behind and use his powers for his own gain, whereas Ock just wanted his machine back, Goblin just wanted to hurt Peter and cause chaos (but is far less powerful than Electro), Sandman just wanted to go home, and Lizard wanted to make everyone into Lizards. So Peter's actions towards them all pretty much always make sense within the context of the film and what Peter's knowledge is at any given time.
AC1
AC1 - 1/4/2022, 7:10 AM
@TheManWithoutFear - I feel like the real world explanation is that just wanted a villain from each film and needed to come up with a convenient excuse to do it and just settled with "they all know Peter Parker is Spider-Man" and "they died fighting Spider-Man" as ways to focus specifically on those villains and explain why we weren't getting hundreds of random Spidey villains from across the multiverse.

As for the in-universe explanation, the only way I can see it making sense is that Strange was wrong about why the spell brought them into their universe, and it wasn't specifically due to them knowing Spidey's identity or dying in battle with him but for some other inexplicable reason. Strange does say "The Multiverse is a concept about which we know frighteningly little" so I guess that kinda goes some way in suggesting that he doesn't have all the answers and is making a series of educated guesses anyway.

As for "just sending Sandman home" without being cured or anything - I think the box thing was designed to basically send them all home in one go, so if they send him home early then they'd be sending the others home to their deaths which isn't what Peter wanted. And because the multiverse was basically collapsing throughout the movie, even if they could send him back early without sending the others, he would've just been dragged back into the MCU until Peter and Strange could send everyone back and fix things like they did at the end.
TheManWithoutFear
TheManWithoutFear - 1/4/2022, 7:38 AM
@AC1 - I like this attempt at a no-prize. Only Stan has authority to give them out though ;)
TheHumanSpider2
TheHumanSpider2 - 1/4/2022, 7:58 AM
@TheManWithoutFear -
*feels guilty for murdering uncle Ben"
*take an active role in the murder of aunt May"

"I DONT CARE!"
GwenLantern
GwenLantern - 1/4/2022, 6:42 AM
Lizard, too.

Was weird watching them both talk like regular people in CG all the time. But Covid, so whatever.
Whaley87
Whaley87 - 1/4/2022, 7:36 AM
@GwenLantern - They definitely didn't use Rhys Ifans regular voice for his scenes, what do you mean?
newhire13
newhire13 - 1/4/2022, 8:03 AM
@Whaley87 - That was definitely him
Cap1
Cap1 - 1/4/2022, 8:13 AM
@Whaley87 - 'Well you know, like most Christmas presents, the good thing is not knowing what’s in them until it’s time to open them.' is a quote from Ifans. It was definitely him
Whaley87
Whaley87 - 1/5/2022, 9:38 AM
@newhire13 - I'm referring to his "regular voice", I know it was Rhys Ifans, but they obviously change his voice, he doesn't sound like that regularly.
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 1/4/2022, 7:36 AM
Sinister 5… come on, Sony. Or marvel. Or whoever.
GirshwinDavies
GirshwinDavies - 1/4/2022, 9:19 AM
@TheWalkingCuban - Seriously. Loved the movie. But I agree
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 1/4/2022, 9:38 AM
@GirshwinDavies - yes great movie, but I think he goes back to my conspiracy, Sony is leading marvel dude just so much with the villains. Vulture is in another universe now, Mysterio is dead, sinister five instead of six, a fresh symbiote not theirs from their playground, in fact no Hardy, Morbius or Kraven and scorpion fizzed out (I’ll gladly eat crow if the multiverse silhouettes prove me wrong), It’s aggravating
TheHumanSpider2
TheHumanSpider2 - 1/4/2022, 7:57 AM
No shit
dragon316
dragon316 - 1/4/2022, 8:06 AM
Saw movie first time yesterday his face and lizard did look cgi cartoon was shocked to see iron spider suit wasn’t cgi in end of movie battle being maskless talking to other spidermen
Spike101
Spike101 - 1/4/2022, 8:27 AM
It’s a real shame we didn’t see more of him, the early part of Spider-Man 3 was amazing with the transformation then the bank robbery and the truck scene. The final battle was not so good when he was just a huge monster though.
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 1/4/2022, 9:14 AM
@Spike101 - One really cool thing about that part was as a huge sand monster, he had cinderblocks rolling all through him and it looked cool
GwenLantern
GwenLantern - 1/4/2022, 12:30 PM
@Spike101 - I would still place Spider-Man 3 higher than all other live-action Spider-Man films since then.

Really got my fingers crossed for Raimi to return for the next movie. It's all teed up for him.
Spike101
Spike101 - 1/5/2022, 2:07 AM
@GwenLantern - yes the same here. I loved Raimi’s take on it all and was absolutely gutted when it came to an end and we never saw all his Easter eggs like Dr Connors and the theatre usher who was supposed to be Mysterio come into play.
Spike101
Spike101 - 1/5/2022, 2:11 AM
@TheWalkingCuban - yes agreed. The special effects for the time were amazing. Rewatching some of these movie recently and then the Multiverse of Madness trailer I realised how good the soundtrack to Raimi’s movies are. It gives Multiverse of Madness quite a dark tone already, which I think it needs.
BecauseICare
BecauseICare - 1/4/2022, 9:36 AM
I had a completely different experience. When watching the movie I didn't even notice it was all lifted from their particular films. I figured they were shot on a green screen somewhere else and put in the movie. But I had no idea it was just repurposed footage from their previous films. But the dialogue wasn't repurposed. So maybe that's why for me it wasn't noticeable that they didn't film new footage. Because the dialogue was new.
ThorArms
ThorArms - 1/4/2022, 10:03 AM
His cgi was better in SM3 tbh.
ElvenKingSlayer
ElvenKingSlayer - 1/5/2022, 3:49 AM
Why is this article written like it's a surprise? Both Sandman and lizard, like many users point out, were porly done. It was obvious. They should've atleast tried to do something new or cool with Sandman in his sandform if they didn't have access to Haden.
View Recorder