Zack Snyder's Justice League VFX Supervisor Reveals How Much New FX Was Added
Source: ComicBookMovie
Zack Snyder's Justice League is a vastly different film to the one released in 2017, and when we recently spoke with the VFX team, they addressed the misconception of how much of the movie is newly made.
The road to Zack Snyder's Justice League has been like no other. After a dismal response to the 2017 film, fans pushed to get Snyder's original version released without Joss Whedon's much-maligned additions.
Out of the controversial ashes rose the phoenix. What was originally referred to as the Snyder Cut is now called Zack Snyder's Justice League, and is nearly unrecognizable from the original film. The sprawling epic clocks in at just over four hours, with six parts (seven including the epilogue) that flesh out characters in brilliant ways, particularly Ray Fisher's Cyborg and Steppenwolf.
Because the film was so vastly different and so much was altered or added, we chatted with the Weta Digital VFX team to better understand the behind-the-scenes process. When asked, the team, which consists of Kevin Andrew Smith (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), Simeon Duncombe (Avengers: Endgame), and Anders Langlands (X-Men: Days of Future Past), was quick to point out that fans have a misconception when it comes to how much footage was already shot and how much had to be filmed from scratch.
Minor spoilers ahead...
"Most of it was new. I think there was a misconception when this show was greenlit that we were just gonna dust off the old work, but there was actually vastly more new work than there was old. Even in the performance of Steppenwolf being in 80% of the shots or something, a huge percentage, even if it was an old shot where we were taking the performance, we still had work there to do. You still want it to tweak his performance to the new design.
It's largely all new stuff. And like I mentioned earlier with how we approach the motion capture for the new design, that's a new approach as well. So yeah, a lot of new work. And integrating the new design into shots that were filmed for a different design was also a huge challenge for us as well. So yeah, it was way more work than the first time around in less time as well, which is great."
Obviously, this is just a small portion of our conversation. We want to avoid as many spoilers as possible, so we have included the entirety of our chat below [here]. Be sure to let us know what you think after listening and feel free to share your thoughts in the usual spot!