Marvel VFX supervisor clarifies those Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania third-act change rumors
"Our third act didn't change since photography to the end," said Jesse James Chisholm in a recent interview with IndieWire
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For the last few months, VFX artists have been coming out of the woodwork to describe the hellish experiences they’ve had working on Marvel films. Between the studio’s tendency to alter CGI-heavy scenes on a whim and having over-worked teams working on multiple projects at once, it’s not a shock that rumors began swirling around Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania being no different, with an anonymous VFX tech describing to Vulture the messy late-stage changes Marvel made to “the latter third and fourth” of the film. All of that appears to be hearsay, at least according to Marvel VFX production supervisor Jesse James Chisholm, who spoke with IndieWire about the Phase 5 film’s final act.
“Our third act didn’t change since photography to the end,” said Chisholm, who previously worked on Black Widow and Spider-Man: Far From Home. “So it was always massive, all it did was get compacted. But there was no new storyline. We had a solid construct of the film. All that happened was it kept getting tighter and tighter. Marvel is always looking to make their films better. If I’ve made something that looks amazing and it just falls flat, they’re gonna ditch it and try and find [something] that works better.”
Ignoring the obvious Quantum Realm pun of compacted storylines, Chisholm’s statement seems to contradict previous claims made by VFX workers who’ve worked with Marvel. In the Vulture piece, one of the techs described “a lot of reworking, a lot of inefficiency” being involved in the making of Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, as priority had been given to the more obvious money-maker Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Despite the contradictory views of how much editing was done to the film’s story later down the road, Chisholm does seem to line up with other VFX artists’ claims of how rigorous the production was—without putting any blame on Marvel for those ridiculous working conditions in the first place.
“We had our days in long runs of it, just the strain of putting it together,” recalled Chisholm. “I worked at Digital Domain, I knew what came with the job, and it’s challenging and it’s tough; I had the benefit of healthcare, I was taken really good care of by my company.”
He added, “You would hope that facilities can take on the work…without putting strain on the artists. They know that there’s gonna be a certain amount of change and we’re all gonna rally around to make it work. I think there’s a shift and I think vendors are saying no.”
That “certain amount of change” might be coming to Marvel Studios sooner than later, as the International Alliance Of Theatrical Stage Employees (aka IATSE, the union for behind-the-scenes crew on productions) recently launched a survey for VFX workers to detail their working conditions and pay, marking them one step closer to unionization.
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Thank you for the most interesting comment I’ve read in weeks. Who will play Jack in the animated version of this story?
Timothee Chalamet, naturally.
Just saw it yesterday, and I didn’t think the effects looked as bad as I’d been led to believe. In 3D, there were a few scenes where it was obviously a few props on a soundstage, with 25-foot+-high green screens on all sides, but that was about it. I read afterwards that they filmed in Turkey before moving to the soundstages, but I couldn’t figure out what those scenes were.
Yeah, the Internet and social media like to take moderate claims and blow them completely out of proportion. (“A couple VFX shots were a little shaky” becomes “they filmed it with clutch cargo and burlap hand puppets”.)
As well as certain audio-visual clubs, constantly.
It really feels like people are just not articulating this critique properly. I don’t think there’s audience members counting polygons I just think people didn’t like how it looked period.
It feels like a lot of dude-bros would walk out of this and although what they mean is “I didn’t like this imaginary environment” they call it “bad CGI” when, in my opinion, it was pretty great CGI and just conceptually misguided from the beginning.
I liked it. But I don’t suppose everyone would. (Nothing wrong with that I guess.)
I’m sure on rewatch I’ll notice more, but I feel the same way about the Fx. They were fine.
Yah people just say ‘”bad CGI” when they mean “I didn’t like the CGI”. It was of cutting edge quality. It just didn’t work with people.
I don’t think the effects were that bad, although I could understand why some people would not like the look of MODOK, for example.
My problem with Quantumania is that it’s not very appealing visually. There’s a bunch of different visual concepts thrown at the screen and nothing really sticks out. Considering all the efforts that were made to have Wakanda feel like a real place, it’s pretty obvious when Marvel isn’t trying very hard.
I was gobsmacked by the level of detail when I watched the Assembled episode for Wakanda Forever. They had distinct factions of the Wakandan army and stuff.
My only “note” about the visuals was that, unlike the previous Ant-Man film or Civil War, it was really difficult to tell when Lang and Cassie were supposed to be “big”. They’re running around next to buildings etc. that have no sense of scale to us.
Of course, going “big” in a microscopic universe sort of brings to mind “jumbo shrimp” anyways.
A+ timing for She-Hulk to insult the effects guys in its finale, huh?
*incel sees an opportunity to be mad about She-Hulk*
My kid thought the characters in Avatar were actors in blue makeup and prosthethics. I have failed as a parent… sigh~!
Or they succeeded as VFX artists. I build/design and puppeteer puppets. I’ve worked Fringe festivals for many years. I’ll never forget speaking to audiences of kids with a puppet on my hand and despite the fact that my face is visible they actually look into the puppets eyes when speaking to “the puppet”.
That’s amazing. You should be excited that your kid has such a sense of wonder.
Thanks. That’s is a good perspective, the way you have explained it.
“I had the benefit of healthcare. I was really taken care of by my company.” That really screams gun to the head reading off a cue card in a hostage situation when put like that.
It’s also not really contradicting the previous reports – it’s just describing the redundant work and story changes as “tightening.” But it’s good that the company gives him access to a doctor – at least in theory. It’s not clear where he’d make room for an appointment with all the tightening. Also, isn’t it like a 150 minute movie about Ant Man? How much tightening could they possibly have done?
I’m a citizen of a country where you just have to be a citizen to get healthcare. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to reading about how it’s tied to your job.
It’s even better for children, since their access to care is tied to their parents’ jobs (or a safety net that people would love to defund).
Just that classic you have no value as a human being unless you’re making a capitalist richer with your surplus labor American “work ethic” in action.
We’re not used to it either.
Look, they had to find a way to get a captive workforce somehow after that whole slavery thing ended.
I was gonna say… “If I’ve made something that looks amazing and it just falls flat, they’re gonna ditch it and try and find [something] that works better,” doesn’t so much contradict “a lot of reworking, a lot of inefficiency,” as it does clarify it.
Is it about Ant-Man tho? I’d like to draw attention to the following poster. Notice how “Ant-Man And The Wasp” is written in the same dark blue coloured font as the dark blue of the background of the poster? And notice how the word Quantumania is much larger and written in font that pops with the dark background? Also notice how small Ant-Man and Wasp are on Kang’s hand in the photo.
Now stay with me here…. I dare you to squint at this poster and tell me what you see… Kang and the word Quantumania. They deliberately are lost in their own poster. Only a fool would think this was done accidentally…
I fully believe him that they “didn’t change the third act” in the sense of the big climactic battle, but it REALLY seemed like they might’ve had an alternate fate for Scott at the very end of his little wrestling match with Kang in the last quantum-realm scene after everyone else has already gone thru the portal. I suspect there was a version in which when stays and sacrifices himself to let the others go free, and Hope doesn’t/can’t come back for him. And I would’ve been okay with that, since it seemed like they were building up to that the whole film, and the way they actually did end up going was a bit anticlimactic. (Those few minutes of Scott being back on Earth, thinking to himself, “Gosh I hope I did the right thing!”)
But why would Ant-Man die tho? Tony Stark dying made sense because he started out as a war profiteer and he was constantly atoning for his sins. Scott Lang’s greatest sin is trying to be a present father.
My biggest beef with this film was “random unearned character beats”.
(SPOILERS)
Think MODOK telling Scott he was like a brother to him, or Hank being like “I read every damn word of your book” in the climax. The whole movie felt contrived and unnatural.
He was never supposed to be dead. He and Hope supposedly trap inside the quantumrealm until the Avenger Kang Dinasty.
I never said he had to die, simply that he wouldn’t escape. That could’ve been that way, or it could’ve just been him sacrificing his freedom to keep Kang busy while the others escaped — which he did — but without Hope coming back for him. Or she does come back and they both get stuck there.As to why, if it was just him stuck there, it would open up a spot in the regular Avengers lineup for someone with his powers which would be a good excuse for Wasp to join the team, since she was such a mainstay of the books. His entrapment there (or death) would also inspire Cassie to form the Young Avengers, which we know she’s gonna do and has clearly been setup over and over again by all their introductions in Phase 4.
(In fact, I’d say it’s the one common thread in all of Phase 4 — Ms. Marvel, Wanda’s kids, Patriot, Kate Bishop, America Chavez, Kid Loki — they all appeared in that phase. Aside from Hulkling, that’s most of them.)
(SPOILERS)…..I think the MODOK one was meant to be ridiculous, like a parody of the sort of dying redemption villains get.
They definitely did change the ending—not only did prior leaks that corroborated the whole movie’s plot accurately had a different ending for Scott and Kang, Paul Rudd was spotted filming the new ending in January this year, just weeks before the movie’s release date, holding the same props and wearing the same clothes as seen in the final scenes of the movie.
Thanks — I wasn’t aware of all that, but you can definitely “feel” it in the plot beats at the end.
It really feels like they’re taking the wrong criticism here. It isn’t that the VFX looked bad, it’s that I didn’t like that environment. Whoever did what did a fine job of it I just think it looks like candycrush nonsense in a film where there isn’t a lot of real world thing to latch on to (Scott just saved the universe and he’s sad that he got frozen in time for five years and missed his daughters childhood – MAN THAT IS SO ME RIGHT NOW).
There keeps being reports of them defending the quality of the VFX and it’s like can you hear the complaint guys…?
It was a script issue the script was poo-poo from conception. Where was fast talking Luis? I think Detective Woo got to wave in the opening montage. The hell was this movie? Like literally just do it Honey I Shrunk The Kids. That’s all anyone wanted. But lets gaze at purple and pink gobbly goo some more.