The creation of Smart Hulk was so labor-intensive, the creatives behind Avengers: Endgame started testing the character out long before production on the third and fourth Avengers film kicked off. As it turns out, Joe and Anthony Russo wanted Mark Ruffalo to film some green screen shots so Marvel Studios’ visual effects vendors could work on building the character to see if the end result was something they wanted to pursue. Luckily for the Russos — and everyone else involved in the decision — Ruffalo was already on the set to Thor: Ragnarok.
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It all started with a piece of artwork from Marvel Studios’ Ryan Meinerding, the head of the production houses visual development office. From there, Endgame visual effects supervisor Dan DeLeeuw sent it to Russell Earl and his team at Industrial Light and Magic to begin modeling using the Hulk from Avengers: Age of Ultron as a base model. That’s when they decided they needed some test footage to implement the model and tweak it further.
“We’d actually done a test before both movies had started, they were working on Ragnarok with Mark down in Australia and we wanted some motion capture footage of Mark,” DeLeeuw tells ComicBook.com. “So on their motion capture day, the Russo’s got on the phone with Mark and Taika and they said, ‘Well this is kind of what we’re looking for. It’s basically Banner in an over-size Hulk body.’”
What happened next was the most Ruffaloesque of situations. The Russos had the fan-favorite actor ad-libbing various scenes — including a humorous scenario involving fat fingers and a keyboard.
“Mark was just kind of ad-libbing, trying to type on a computer keyboard and he can’t because his fingers are too big and so he gets angry and kicks over a table and knocks over…but it’s this funny little gag because it was Banner living in a body that doesn’t fit into the world,” mentions DeLeeuw. “And it was funny because you saw Mark’s face and expression so that kind of solidified the idea to push a little bit more Mark into the Hulk, into the design.”
Because of the test shots done during the principal photography of Ragnarok, DeLeeuw says they were able to perfect the look of the final product that ended up appearing in Endgame. For what it’s worth, both DeLeeuw and Earl have been nominated for Academy Awards for their work together on Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Infinity War.
We spoke with DeLeeuw in support of the home media release Avengers: Endgame is now out digitally ahead of a home media release on August 13th. Do you think Avengers: Endgame will get nominated for Best Visual Effects at next year’s Academy Awards? Share your thoughts in the comments below or by tweeting me at @AdamBarnhardt!
Other upcoming Marvel Studios projects include Black Widow on May 1, 2020, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in fall 2020, The Eternals on November 6, 2020, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on February 12, 2021, WandaVision in spring 2021, Loki in spring 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 7, 2021, What If? In summer 2021, Hawkeye in fall 2021, and Thor: Love and Thunder on November 5, 2021.
