Quantumania VFX Artists Reveal Why The Movie Looks So Ugly And It’s Bad News For Marvel
VFX artists working on Quantumania revealed that they often worked under extreme pressure, which led to poor visual effect quality.
While the newest Ant-Man movie was highly anticipated, fans were less excited after seeing the film. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is currently being compared with what is considered Marvel’s worst movie of all time, Eternals. Many fans have picked up on the film’s lackluster special effects making much of the movie look fake and uninspired, prompting the film’s VFX team to speak out in a tell-all with Vulture, and the results aren’t pretty.
Since the film’s release, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has received a slew of critical reviews, much of which are centered around the film’s questionable visual effects. According to the VFX team, working on the movie was a nightmare, with Marvel Studios demanding long hours and providing poor-quality shots for them to work with. A lot went wrong behind the movie’s scenes, leading to the ugly visuals fans have been seeing on the big screen.
One technician that worked on Quantumania noted the vast number of shortcuts that had to be put in place to make up for the lack of time artists had to complete their work. Numerous questionable editorial cuts were made to try to save the film. For many scenes, that meant cutting out some action that the team simply did not have the time to render.
Another team member cited the bad shots provided to them by Marvel, noting how they had to “Frankenstein together” the performance because the shots were not correct. Had the studio taken the time to get the right performance from the actor, the VFX team could have saved a lot of time making what they had work and could have created a more visually stunning film.
The visual effects work for Quantumania overlapped with the work on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Unfortunately for Ant-Man fans, the team alleges that Wakanda Forever was given priority, meaning more time and money was spent making that movie perfect with Quantumania left behind.
Between working on the two films, visual effects technicians often had to work 80-hour weeks for months. Numerous team members felt overworked and underpaid for their time working with Marvel, leading many to point fingers at the studio for perpetuating VFX worker burnout. Those working in visual effects have to deal with industry-wide burnout and large studios like Marvel are not doing enough to fix the problem.
Being one of the largest studios in the industry, many feel that Marvel is so big they can demand whatever they want. The studio is known for asking for excessive changes, further overworking VFX staff. The studio that brought us Iron Man has also been known to blacklist VFX houses that are unable to cope with their unreasonably high demands.
For fans already unhappy with the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, this alleged conduct from the studio only serves to disappoint them further. A large studio like Marvel should be committed to putting out the best quality work possible to their loyal followers. However, the conditions described by Quantumania’s VFX team reveal a lack of money, time, and dedication on Marvel’s part to deliver the very best for its viewers.
