Black Panther's Suit in CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR Is 100% CGI in Every Frame of Film
Black Panther made his feature film debut in Captain America: Civil War, and it certainly was an impressive debut. Chadwick Boseman was awesome in the rol,e and Marvel did an incredible job bringing him to life. I especially thought the costume was badass.
I assumed there was some CGI used to give the costume that wicked cool look that it had in the film, but I didn't realize it was entirely CGI! This news surprised the hell out of me because you couldn't even tell. Now, when I say entirely, I mean entirely.
During the commentary on the film's Blu-ray/DVD, (via ScreenCrush), directors Anthony and Joe Russo discuss the introduction of Black Panther with writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. At one point Joe says this:
“[They] really did a ton of work on that outfit. I mean, we had an outfit that we used on set. It’s impossible when you’re talking about an otherworldly outfit like the one that the Panther wears, which has a certain luminescence to it because it’s made of a woven metal. We could never afford to construct an outfit like that that an actor or a stunt player could move around in without sweating to death or that would capture the luminescence that we need. So what we ended up doing in post is ILM came in and painted over Chadwick and the stuntman. The outfit is completely CG.”
McFeely and Markus then went on to clarify that every single frame that featured the Black Panther, we are seeing a full CGI suit. The Russo Brothers confirmed this as well. I would have never thought that every frame featured a CG suit, and I'm incredibly impressed by what the visual effects team accomplished.
Whenever I think of a full CGI superhero suit, the Green Lantern's movie suit automatically pops into my head. That was just terrible on every level. ILM seems to have perfected the craft, though, because Black Panther's suit is a work of digital art.
