Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1527843
O C T O B E R • N O V E M B E R • D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 2 C G W 7 D eadpool & Wolverine follows wisecracking merce- nary Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), as he discovers that a megalomaniac Time Vari- ance Authority agent known as Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) is conspiring to speed up the death of his timeline in the multiverse. Determined to save his beloved Earth-10005, the "Merc with a Mouth" recruits a very reluctant Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) from an alternate universe. Amidst their heroic pursuits, the unlikely duo encounters the tele- pathic wrath of Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin) and meets a mas- sive corps of Deadpool variants—including the alluring Lady Dead- pool and the adorable Dogpool. Marking the o•cial Marvel Cinematic Universe debut of its titular characters, the action-packed comedy follows 20th Century Fox's previous pair of Deadpool installments. A˜er surpassing $1.3 billion at the box o•ce, it dethroned 2019's Joker as the highest grossing R-rated œlm of all time. Directed by Shawn Levy, the œlm achieved its signature blend of stylized violence, fourth wall-busting humor, and multiversal mayhem thanks to visual eŸects wizardry by Framestore. The award-winning studio's teams in Vancouver, Montreal, London, Mumbai, and Mel- bourne delivered over 420 œnal VFX shots and 900+ previz, techviz, and postviz shots for the project. Framestore VFX supervisor Matthew Twyford, who previously leant his talents to Thor: Love and Thunder and the Loki series, shared an inside look at bringing Deadpool & Wolverine's most memorable moments to life on screen. What interested you most about this project when you ˆrst signed on? It was actually the people involved. I'd worked previously with Lisa Marra, the visual eŸects producer on Thor 4, and really enjoyed that process. It was a similar sort of show—something that had a bit of a sense of humor, but with the fantastic sort of mythology and science and craziness that you get from Marvel. Most visual eŸects artists want to do Marvel shows because they're always pushing the limits of what can be achieved visually. They always seem to come up with new ideas—new things that have never been done before. With teams spread out across the globe, how did you set up such a large-scale, collaborative work'ow? Communication is so important. We've been working multi-site now for over ten years, so we've got a strong infrastructure in place. I personally traveled out to Vancouver. They had the majority of the show, so that's where we decided to set up our hub. Every site had a deœned project to look a˜er. We ended up having four distinct vi- sual eŸects supervisors [Matthew Twyford, Robert Allman, Arek Ko- morowski, and João Sita] because we could break it up quite nicely into discrete areas. The team that [visualization supervisor] Kaya Jabar and FPS [Framestore Pre-Production Services] put together really gelled well with the director and [overall VFX supervisor] Swen Gillberg. They were so open to collaboration, which allowed the artists to really bloom and bring personal contributions—more so than I've seen on Framestore delivered over 420 œnal VFX shots for this project.