ILM Reveals the Visual Effects Behind James Gunn's "Superman"
Posted on November 20, 2025 by Neil Cole
Industrial Light & Magic has unveiled new details about its visual-effects work on James Gunn's "Superman", offering an inside look at the creative and technical collaboration that helped define the film's visual identity. ILM Visual Effects Supervisor Enrico Damm described early real-time sessions with Gunn, production designer Beth Mickle, and VFX supervisor Stephane Ceretti, noting, "He would be able to direct changes in real time," which ensured all vendors began with a unified artistic foundation.
To build the film's version of Metropolis, ILM captured extensive real-world reference material. "I spent a couple days in a helicopter over New York City, capturing reference photography," Damm said. CG Supervisor Matt Middleton detailed the resulting digital cityscape: "We built Metropolis in sections... We had hundreds of unique buildings, which gave Metropolis a great organic feel," an approach designed to avoid the repetitive look often associated with procedural cities.
ILM also created full digital doubles of David Corenswet for both Superman and Ultraman, employing comprehensive body and facial scanning. "We scanned him... to recreate him on-screen, which included a full digital replica with muscle, bone, and cloth systems," Damm explained. Animation Supervisor Paul Kavanagh added that much of Superman's flight work relied heavily on CG, saying, "A lot of the times when you see Superman flying... the only thing that wasn't CG was his face," while Stephen King emphasized their goal to make the hero's movement feel convincingly physical.
Among ILM's most complex tasks were the Engineer and the Hammer of Boravia. Damm described the Hammer's challenge as "texturing and shading... to craft the shading response that a metallic object has," while the Engineer required intricate particle-based simulations: "There are really millions of little individual objects... we constantly adjusted the size of the nanites." Middleton noted the enormous geometric detail of the interdimensional rift sequence, calling their aim "a look that people could believe in, which doesn't look like a CG fantasyland."
Krypto's CG animation offered another opportunity for nuanced detail. "We're looking at how deep the foot presses... the squish of the toe pads... the slight spread of the toes," Kavanagh said, adding that even the dog's panting and tongue movement were studied closely. King noted that subtle realism is what makes CG characters resonate: "It's the subtle stuff... that can make it more realistic, and that's what we love to do."
ILM's global teams contributed roughly 560 shots across multiple studios, with coordinated workflows that allowed near-continuous progress. Reflecting on the project, King called ILM "the dream job," while Middleton praised the collective effort behind the film's scale and complexity. Damm highlighted a key dramatic sequence as emblematic of their work: "It demonstrates how human he truly is... That shot itself feels as if it's right out of a comic."
Read ILM's full breakdown of its work on "Superman" on the studio's official website at ILM.com.
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English (US) · 