Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Costume Designer Was Told to Ignore High Evolutionary’s Comic Look

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3‘s costume designer had to ignore The High Evolutionary’s comic look. Disney+ has release Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and it shared some new details about the chilling villain. Costume designer Judianna Makovsky explained how James Gunn pushed the makeup and wardrobe teams to think beyond the source materials when it came to The High Evolutionary. It’s a tough task for such a comic fan favorite. But, the script allowed them to really lean into the mad scientist’s self-aggrandizing nature with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Hearing the details behind Chukwudi Iwuji’s transformation are fascinating on so many levels.

“We started with images from the comic and James was like ‘that’s not who I wanted this to be.’ ‘How did he get to this point?’” Makovsky revealed. “You know, it works in the comics. But, in the evolution of the character in this script, it made it something new and unique and different. It started with the makeup and I have to say that was a great collaboration with Legacy Effects. Legacy did a lot of makeup sketches.”

Chukwudi Iwuji Explains How The High Evolutionary Is Different Than The Comics

People have praised the portrayal of The High Evolutionary in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 despite him being very different from his comic book counterpart. ComicBook.com’s Phase Zero podcast spoke to Chukwudi Iwuji about the MCU villain and how his portrayal differs from what’s historically been on the page. In his eyes, High Evolutionary had to be different this time around.

“I don’t have those conversation. I didn’t even have those conversations with James before Peacemaker,” Iwuji said to the panel. “I think because, again, I come back to his scripts. I had so much in the scripts and enough there. The Rocket backstory for the purposes of this movie was all we needed. Who the High Evolutionary’s mother was or birth planet really doesn’t matter here for me.” 

 “I really am as an actor in general, not just for this, I’m very wary of overly researching stuff. Because sometimes you get so lost in those details and they’re what we then take into the room, and sometimes they block what’s actually in front of you or what’s on the text,” he continued. “And then statements like, “Oh, I don’t think my character would do this,” start to pop up. And you just go, ‘well, why the hell not? The script says you do it. Find a way to navigate that.’ Does that make sense? So, I really didn’t discuss that with James. In fact, I just found out that reading an interview he did that the High Evolutionary visited Earth in the ’80s. I just find out. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s very interesting.’”

Will The High Evolutionary Return After Guardians Vol. 3?

After the popularity of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, fans immediately wondered if Iwuji’s villain really perished in that ending to the film. Well according to an alternate scene that’s made its way out into the world, it looks like The High Evolutionary is still out there. Iwuji talked about filming that clip during his appearance on Phase Zero as well.

“Well, let me just put it this way. I’m hoping you’ll see an extended version or maybe an alternate ending, you know, that we certainly did film,” Iwuji mused. “I mean the whole point in Marvel is that unless you see someone die they haven’t necessarily died and even if they do die what does that mean in the multiverse, right? But, the point is that Rocket doesn’t shoot me. They make a point of saying why don’t you kill him and he says no, I’m not going to kill him. And you don’t actually see me go down with the ship. So, I’ll just leave it at that.”

Did you like this version of The High Evolutionary? Let us know down in the comments!