Stan Lee Was De-Aged 45 Year For His Cameo in AVENGERS: ENDGAME and Details on the Process Revealed

The final cameo that Stan Lee made in a Marvel movie was in Avengers: Endgame. The cameo took place in the 1970s and it’s been confirmed that he was de-aged 45 years for that little appearance.

The de-aging work on Lee was done by Lola VFX, which is the company that seems to have perfected the de-aging process in film for Marvel Studios. CB had a chance to talk to Lola's Trent Claus about the process of digital de-aging, and he said:

"There was some work, very minor de-aging done on Captain Marvel. But that was 10 years ago or something, so not really a noticeable change overall, especially for a man of his age. But for this one, we had to go back 45 years, so it was a pretty sizable amount."

He then went on to talk about how they pull off the de-aging of characters and explains that they have to treat every frame of the younger actors like a painting.

"The work that we do, we don't create a CG replication of the actor. We use the actor that's actually there on screen, so we were actually modifying the actor in the performance that was there on set as opposed to re-creating something new. So, we have to treat each and every frame like a painting, where you're working with light and shadow, and form, and composition, and things like that to accomplish the goal."

So, there’s a lot of freaking hard work that goes into this, but they have a team of artists that have the talent and skills to pull off the amazing work that they do.

"We've got a highly trained roster of artists here that work for us that have been doing this for a long time. Lola started de-aging way back on X-Men 3, and have been doing it ever since. I started with the first, as far as de-aging and stuff goes, with the first Captain America."

Claus goes on to explain that these artist have to have an extensive knowledge of anatomy to pull this kind of visual effects off:

"You have to rely on the artist's knowledge of anatomy, the changes that happen to humans over time, the physiological changes in the skin and the muscles, and the mechanics of the expressions that you make in your face, and also the body, the posture and the build of the body changes over time. All those things have to be taken into consideration."

Wow! I’ve gotta say, I’m really impressed by all the work that goes into de-aging actors in these films. I didn’t realize how much actually goes into it.